cross-posting with permission about this amazing woman, grace lee boggs.

It seemed to me that the passing of 100-yr old civil rights activist, Grace Lee Boggs, ought to be
marked in this Group.

Truth is, I only learned about her in 2007, from a Bill Moyers program on PBS. She totally blew me away, and I set out to learn more about this woman's life, and follow her work from then on. So, I'm not willing to let her passing go unacknowledged.

A few pieces about her life and her passing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/us/grace-lee-boggs-detroit-activist-dies-at-100.html

Grace Lee Boggs, Human Rights Advocate for 7 Decades, Dies at 100

Grace Lee Boggs, one of the nation’s oldest human rights activists, who waged a war of inspiration for civil rights, labor, feminism, the environment and other causes for seven decades with an unflagging faith that revolutionary justice was just around the corner, died on Monday at her home in Detroit. She was 100.

<snip>

Born to Chinese immigrants, Ms. Boggs was an author and philosopher who planted gardens on vacant lots, founded community organizations and political movements, marched against racism, lectured widely on human rights and wrote books on her evolving vision of a revolution in America.

Her odyssey took her from the streets of Chicago as a tenant organizer in the 1940s to arcane academic debates about the nature of communism, from the confrontational tactics of Malcolm X and the Black Power movement to the nonviolent strategies of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and finally to her own manifesto for change — based not on political and economic upheavals but on community organizing and resurgent moral values.

<snip>

In 1953, she moved to Detroit and married James Boggs, a black autoworker, writer and radical activist. The city, with its large black population, racial inequalities and auto industry in its postwar heyday, seemed poised for changes, and the couple focused on African-Americans, women and young people as vanguards of a social movement.

<snip>

Ms. Boggs eventually adopted Dr. King’s nonviolent strategies and in Detroit, which remained her base for the rest of her life, fostered Dr. King’s vision of “beloved communities,” striving for racial and economic justice through nonconfrontational methods. As Detroit’s economy and population declined sharply over the years, Ms. Boggs became a prominent symbol of resistance to the spreading blight.

She founded food cooperatives and community groups to support the elderly, organize unemployed workers and fight utility shut-offs. She devised tactics to combat crime, including protests outside known crack houses, and in columns for a local weekly newspaper, The Michigan Citizen, she promoted civic reforms.

(please do click on the link and read the whole piece, it's really quite good.)


From the Detroit Free Press:

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2015/10/05/grace-lee-boggs-dead-obituary/73385748/

Grace Lee Boggs, Detroit activist, dies at age 100

She was just Grace.

That’s how longtime friend Ron Scott describes Detroit activist Grace Lee Boggs, who died Monday morning at home in Detroit. She was 100. Her death was confirmed to the Free Press by Rich Feldman, a Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership board member, as well as longtime friend Sharon Howell. This summer, hundreds celebrated Boggs' birthday at a party held at Detroit's Charles H. Wright African-American Museum. Boggs was unable to attend.

Boggs died as she had lived, Howell said Monday — “surrounded by books, ideas, politics and people, thinking about the future” — and as she had hoped, peacefully, in her sleep.

Howell said Boggs is to be cremated. A memorial will be held later this month.

Activist, civil rights pioneer, public intellectual and prolific writer, Boggs’ work spanned an era, touching literally thousands of lives.

For decades, she was a prominent public face of a particularly Detroit brand of activism: A one-time Marxist, the Chinese-American Boggs’ ideological evolution led her to black revolution, black power, neighborhood organization and educational reform. She was an unrelenting critic of the cultural and economic conditions that contributed to Detroit’s decline, with a keen focus on the struggles of the city’s economic underclass. Her fierce intellect was uncompromising, demanding a constant evaluation of ideas and assumptions. Her guidance nurtured generations of activists who continue to play a role in the struggle to define and shape the city Boggs made her home.

(Much more at link - please read the whole piece!)


A rememberance at the Boggs Center website:

http://boggscenter.org/?p=7624

Philosopher, activist, and writer Grace Lee Boggs has died at her home on the east side of Detroit. She was 100.

Over the past 70-plus years, she played roles in most of the major social movements this country has known: labor, civil rights, Black Power, women’s rights, and environmental justice.

Zak Rosen produced this remembrance of Grace Lee Boggs

It’s hard to sum up the life of someone who kept changing. But that was Grace Lee Boggs. At different times in her life, she was a Marxist, a socialist, a Black Power advocate, and feminist.

But Rich Feldman, who worked with Boggs for over 40 years, thinks that’s missing the point.

“It’s so much not about the labels. It’s about how do we look at reality and reflect upon reality and not get locked into the ideas that we may have been molded with at another time in our own lives,” Feldman said.

In the documentary film, “American Revolutionary, The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs,” Boggs reflected on her long life in activism.

“And as I’ve grown older, I’ve understood I should change. And changing was more honorable than not changing…”

“I can remember swearing when I was young that I would not change, because if I changed I would betray the revolution. And as I’ve grown older, I’ve understood I should change. And changing was more honorable than not changing,” Boggs said in an interview from the film.

At her core, Boggs was a philosopher – someone who believed in the power of ideas, and how those ideas could be shaped into reality. Take the word “revolution.” As a young activist, Boggs understood revolution as oppressed people seizing state power. But as she got older, she began to think of revolution in terms of evolution.

“Revolution, as Grace often said and wrote about, is for the sole purpose of the evolution of humankind. It’s not to resolve basic grievances. It’s a much more profound transformation of humanity at a particular moment in history,” Feldman said.

(More at link.)


From Democracy Now!:

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2015/10/5/remembering_legendary_detroit_activist_grace_lee

Democracy Now! has learned the longtime Detroit activist and philosopher Grace Lee Boggs died this morning at the age of 100. "She left this life as she lived it: surrounded by books, politics, people and ideas," said her friends and caretakers Shea Howell and Alice Jennings.

Grace Lee Boggs was involved with the civil rights, black power, labor, environmental justice and feminist movements over the past seven decades. She was born to Chinese immigrant parents in 1915. In 1992, she co-founded the Detroit Summer youth program to rebuild and renew her city.

Grace Lee Boggs was a regular guest on Democracy Now! for many years. Watch all of her appearances here. (click on the page for all the links to her many appearances on the program)


None of us will live forever. But, by god, Grace Lee Boggs had an amazing run. And I fervently hope that all the seeds she planted throughout her life will continue to bear fruit.