The story of an interfaith child becoming an interfaith organizer with Annie Fox | S3E5

In this episode, I speak with Annie Fox, the daughter of a Baptist mother and a Jewish father who has dedicated her life to interfaith relationship building and justice work.  She currently works as the Provincial Assistant for Social Ministry Organizing for Jesuits West. Fox has run grassroots campaigns focused on housing, homelessness, education, immigration, and mass incarceration. Here's our conversation at a glance:

• Favorite line from the prayer of Teilhard de Chardin
• Her upbringing in an interfaith family
• The multiple crises she experienced at the age of 7 and how her local school responded 
• The impact her mother's identity crisis had on her and how that eventually led her to organize
• Seeing the story of Exodus as the first labor strike in history
• Words of wisdom for people new in organizing

Snippet from the interview

"I remember my mother saying to me, “Annie I don’t know who I am if I don’t have a suit to put on in the morning.” […] I did not want my life or my mother’s life to be defined by whether or not we got to put a suit on in the morning. […]Any version of my life where my dignity is defined by whether or not I get to put on a suit in the morning is a fake dignity. My dignity comes from because I am a child of God.”

Word of the day: Activism

Catholic Social Teaching Themes:

• Human Dignity
• Family, Community, and Participation
• The dignity of work and rights of workers
• Solidarity

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