Gerald F. Cox

The Radical Peasant Gerald F. Cox

The Reverend Charles Philipps, a Roman Catholic priest in Northern California from 1910 to 1955 was a solitary champion of family farmers and rural social action for 30 years in California. During the Depression Era years, World War II, and into the 1950?s no Catholic voice sounded so loudly than his in print media, radio, government legislative testimonies, and extensive correspondence for agricultural justice.

As the son of a French Alsatian peasant farmer he personally identified with those who toiled the soil. His appointment as Catholic Rural Life Director for the Archdiicese of San Francisco, California gave him a twenty year long platform for rural social action issues such as the Federal 160 acre limitation, the Central Valley Project, water and energy issues, the formation of farmer cooperatives, importation of Mexican farm workers (Braceros), and the shipping of cattle to Europe following World War II through the Church of the "Brethern Heifer Project".

Along with his rural activities Philipps became a creative and innovative urban Pastor in the poor neighborhood of West Oakland, California from where he also created a summer camp for over 5000 children.

A sometimes irreverannt spokesman, he is remembered for his humorous and gustsy quotes on social justice, agribusiness, and the Catholic Church.

A man of the cloth and one of the soil he was truly a Radical Peasant for his times and activity.