On Thursday, January 14, city council members Bill Peduto and Doug Shields presented a proclamation declaring January 14 “Joni Rabinowitz Day” in Pittsburgh. After 25 years, Joni has retired as the Co-Director for Public Policy Advocacy at Just Harvest, a nonprofit center for action against hunger and poverty located in the South Side. Of course, those who know her know that every day is Joni Day, wherever she is.
The proclamation, along with others from the Pennsylvania Senate, Allegheny County Council, and County Executive Dan Onorato, was presented to Joni at her retirement luncheon at Epiphany Church on Centre Avenue. Just Harvest staff and board members, community activists, bureaucrats, religious leaders, and the movers and shakers from several additional categories attended the event. We all agreed that Joni isn’t a person; she’s a force. We agreed that Joni may be graduating, moving on, and changing her focus, but she’ll never retire. And if you know Joni, you’re smiling right now.
Joni has been a social, political, and economic justice advocate, activist, and crusader all of her life. She comes by it honestly. Her late parents, Victor and Marcia Rabinowitz, were active from the 1930s. Her father’s book, Unrepentant Leftist, is an excellent slice-of-life history of the progressive social movement in the US. While working with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), registering black voters in Georgia in 1963, Joni became involved in a federal lawsuit which set an important precedent for jury selection throughout the US. Voter registration remains one of her most important issues.
Joni came to Pittsburgh in the seventies. I met her in 1982 when I began volunteering at Hunger Action Coalition in Oakland. I was hired as the Food Program Advocate at HAC, which later split into Hunger Services Network and Just Harvest. The first day, I asked myself “Who is this woman?” Twenty-eight years, later, I’m still asking. We spent countless hours driving the turnpike to and from Harrisburg and Washington, DC for various conferences, meetings, lobbying days, and other events. We discussed every topic under the sun.
There have been dozens of hunger and poverty advocates in Pittsburgh over the years, and we worked on many issues together. Joni was always at the center of the storm. Most school districts in Allegheny County now offer breakfast to their students. Income security, food assistance, and other programs continue to serve those who need them. Lawmakers and their staff members at every level of government know Joni’s voice on the phone. And always, always, always, she pushed and prodded, wheedled, cajoled, and demanded that our government’s budgets reflect the needs of those who can’t speak for themselves.
Just Harvest’s work continues. Tara Marks is the new Co-Director for Public Policy Advocacy, but she’s the first to say that she’s not “the new Joni”. Tara is a talented, committed activist herself, and will make her own mark on Pittsburgh. At the luncheon, Just Harvest announced its establishment of the Joni Rabinowitz Fund for New Organizing. I’ll be writing more about it, and about Just Harvest, in future articles.
Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world”. Joni not only practices what she preaches, she makes sure that you practice what she preaches too. Thanks, Joni, for your help, your support, your friendship, and for helping me to find out exactly how far my car can go on the turnpike when the gas gauge is on E.
For more information:
• Pop City article on Joni, January 14, 2009
• I Googled “Joni Rabinowitz” and got 93,000 hits. Try it.
• Unrepentant Leftist by Victor Rabinowitz
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• On January 14, 1950, the US recalled all consular personnel from the People’s Republic of China.
• On January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta.
From “Hidden History of the United States 2010 Calendar”, Progressive Magazine.
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