Social Justice

With a boom box hanging from one shoulder, an old mailbag with his possessions slung over the other shoulder and a walking stick in hand, Junebug Jabbo Jones strolls onto the stage at the Painted Bride Art Center. The bearded, middle-age black man is dressed in denim overalls topped by a sport coat. A red bandanna is tied around his throat, and a brand new trilby hat sits jauntily on his head. He looks like an odd mixture of working man, tramp and sport. Junebug is the creation of actor John O'Neal, the star and only performer in Don't Start Me to Talkin' or I'll Tell You Everything I Know: Sayings From the Life and Writings of Junebug Jabbo Jones.

The vice-presidential candidacy of Sen. Joe Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, should evoke alarm, not celebration, in the American Jewish community. As admirable as his religious views may be to many fellow believers, Jewish and Gentile alike, what really defines Lieberman is his repudiation of the Jewish tradition of secular humanism and support for social and economic justice. Since arriving in the United States in large numbers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the vast majority of Jews have been secular humanists who have championed public education and social insurance programs for the sick, poor, disabled and elderly.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's easy slide to victory in the Brazilian election this Sunday may be prevented by the disillusioned people in the social movements who originally put him in power. "We may vote for Sen. Heloisa Helena in the first round of the election," said Marcus Arruda from the Institute for Policy Alternatives. That could prevent Lula from getting more than 50 percent of the vote and force him into a runoff on Oct. 29. Heloisa Helena Lima de Moraes is a former member of Lula's Workers' Party.

African American Women and Religion By Bettye Collier-Thomas Alfred A. Knopf. 695 pp. $37.50 Reviewed by Marla Frederick Bettye Collier-Thomas' Jesus, Jobs and Justice is a tour de force for the study of women and religion. It navigates within and beyond the walls of institutional religion to delineate the tremendous contributions of African American women of faith to the larger American project. Collier-Thomas, professor of history at Temple University, makes the convincing argument that it was, indeed, the amazing networks of organizations that women developed in the 1920s and '30s that laid the foundation for the success of the civil rights movement.

Caroline "Cary" Isard, 91, of Drexel Hill, an advocate for social justice, died of pneumonia at Delaware County Memorial Hospital on Wednesday, Dec. 1. Her husband of 68 years, Walter Isard, died Nov. 6. In 1956, Mrs. Isard and her husband, an economist who had just joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, moved to Drexel Hill. The corner property with seven bedrooms had plenty of room for their large family and a history appropriate for the new owners, who were Quaker civil rights activists.

Charles Coates Walker, 83, of Cheyney, an advocate for peace and social justice, died of complications of diabetes July 11 at Barclay Friends Nursing Home in West Chester. In 1991, after more than 50 years as a peace activist, Mr. Walker traveled to India to receive the Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation Award, which recognizes those who promote the nonviolent ideals of Mahatma Gandhi. During World War II, Mr. Walker, a Quaker and conscientious objector, went to jail rather than fight.

VATICAN CITY - While the Vatican has picked the highly disciplined Jesuits as advance men for planning papal pilgrimages and to run its worldwide broadcasting network, the notion of a Jesuit pope is still being absorbed in the Holy See. Before Pope Francis, no one from the nearly 500-year-old missionary order had been pope. Previous popes have punished Jesuit theologians for being too progressive in preaching and teaching. The last pontiff, Benedict XVI, sent a polite but firm letter inviting the order's worldwide members to pledge "total adhesion" to Catholic doctrine, including on divorce, homosexuality, and liberation theology.

George Tamaccio, 62, a man of conviction who loved this country and Philadelphia yet chose a prison term instead of fighting in Vietnam, died Dec. 21 of lymphoma at Vancouver General Hospital in British Columbia. Mr. Tamaccio moved to Vancouver Island in 2005 after decades as an activist in Philadelphia-area political, environmental and social justice causes, such as opposing nuclear energy and overdevelopment, and advocating clean water and urban housing. A longtime resident of West Mount Airy, Mr. Tamaccio was a sought-after political consultant who got out the vote through door-to-door canvassing of thousands of households, and was a leader for decades in citizen-action groups seeking to change government policies.

It was an unfortunate incident, but one that propelled artist Michelle Ortiz into a career as a muralist dedicated to social change: Ortiz was a teenager, one of the few Latinas in her private high school. Fresh from art class, she went to the school store to look for a gift for her sister. The teacher in charge told her to stop handling the goods. "She told me, 'Don't touch that because your hands are dirty,' " Ortiz recalled of the conversation in 1996. Ortiz looked at her hands, puzzled.

James T. Ryan, of Lansdowne, 71, a labor educator and social justice activist, died of cancer Tuesday at home. For 26 years, Dr. Ryan was director of the Training and Upgrading Fund of District 1, Local 199C of the National Union of Hospital and Healthcare Employees, AFL-CIO. The fund was created in 1974 in a collective-bargaining agreement between the union and nine Philadelphia hospitals. Its purpose is to provide educational benefits to assist union members and the community to upgrade job skills and to keep pace with increasing technological demands.

Pierre Mauroy, 84, who as France's prime minister in the early 1980s implemented radical social reforms that made life easier for French workers, has died. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Mr. Mauroy died Friday in a hospital in a Paris suburb. He had been suffering from cancer. Mr. Mauroy was prime minister from 1981 to 1984 under Socialist President Francois Mitterrand. His reforms included cutting the legal workweek, lowering the retirement age, and raising the number of paid holidays.

ELECTIONS are about a great many things. They are about party loyalty, about a vision for the nation, state or city and, in the case of Municipal Court Judge (the office I am seeking) they are about justice and the application of it. We live in a time where there are more opportunities for minorities than ever before. As a lifelong Philadelphian who came of age in the '60s, I have lived through this paradigm shift. I was a delegate candidate for Shirley Chisholm when she ran for President in 1972, and I worked tirelessly for Barack Obama when, 35 years later, he sought election.

VATICAN CITY - The man who will move into the 10-room papal residence inside the vaulted gates of the Holy See lives in a simple, austere apartment across from the Cathedral of Buenos Aires. In a city with a taste for luxury and status, he frequently prepares his own meals and abandoned the limousine of his high office to hop on el micro - Argentine slang for the bus. A staunch conservative and devout Jesuit in Latin America's most socially progressive nation, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, is the product of an almost Solomon-esque choice by the princes of the church.

VATICAN CITY - While the Vatican has picked the highly disciplined Jesuits as advance men for planning papal pilgrimages and to run its worldwide broadcasting network, the notion of a Jesuit pope is still being absorbed in the Holy See. Before Pope Francis, no one from the nearly 500-year-old missionary order had been pope. Previous popes have punished Jesuit theologians for being too progressive in preaching and teaching. The last pontiff, Benedict XVI, sent a polite but firm letter inviting the order's worldwide members to pledge "total adhesion" to Catholic doctrine, including on divorce, homosexuality, and liberation theology.

THE ROE V. WADE decision - announced 40 years ago Tuesday - is the best-known Supreme Court decision: When asked, Americans name it eight times more than the second-place Brown v. Board of Education . That's not surprising given the fact that, unlike most other Supreme Court decisions, this one's anniversary is regularly marked, as it was Tuesday, by demonstrations, pro and con. What some people may not remember is that Roe - the case of...

Discourage union threats Labor union violence, like the vandalism and arson at the Chestnut Hill Quaker meeting construction site, is clearly illegal under both federal and state laws. ("Fresh fears of violence at nonunion building sites," Sunday). But labor unions also effectively use threats of violence to push their agenda and to intimidate nonunion workers and others who don't agree with them. This type of union bullying has a long history in Philadelphia. Last summer, employees at the Goldtex construction site faced threats of physical violence from union members.

The long-awaited film version of Les Misérables recently opened everywhere, and the musical is also being staged at the Academy of Music until next Sunday. Les Misérables is not a Christmas musical, but it carries the necessary empathic power for keeping the spirit of the season alive in a way that both entertains and enlightens. It is an epic tale of morality and revolution, love and hate, privilege and poverty, faith and doubt, and one man's relentless obsession for justice vs. another man's lifelong quest for spiritual redemption.

ASSIUT, Egypt - A speeding train that crashed into a bus carrying Egyptian children to their kindergarten on Saturday killed 51 and prompted a wave of anger against a government under mounting pressure to rectify the former regime's legacy of neglect. The crash, which killed children 4 to 6 years old and three adults, led to protests and accusations that President Mohammed Morsi is failing to deliver on the demands of last year's uprising for basic rights, dignity, and social justice.

The Radical Homemaker drove with her husband from their farm in Upstate New York to Penn State Great Valley, where she was giving a talk on their anniversary. Not the day they married. The day he was fired from his job. For author Shannon Hayes and husband Bob Hooper, Nov. 1 is liberation day. "He was a county planner," Hayes said. "And for their Halloween office party he dressed like Nick Bottom from Midsummer Night's Dream. " Picture a wiry man in a tuxedo wearing an ass' head.