Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic Christian without in any way abandoning her social and anarchist activism. She was perhaps the best-known political radical in the American Catholic Church. In the 1930s, Day worked closely with fellow activist Peter Maurin to establish the Catholic Worker movement, a nonviolent, pacifist movement that continues to combine direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf.

A revered figure within the U.S. Catholic community, Day's cause for canonization was recently open by the Catholic Church.