Grace
Lee Boggs is a Chinese-American author, feminist, and social change activist.
She has been involved in nearly every major movement for change in America over
the past century, including Black Power, Civil Rights, Environmental Justice,
Labor and Women's Rights. Her autobiography, LIVING FOR CHANGE, is widely used
in university classrooms on social movements in America. The daughter of Chinese
immigrants, Grace Lee began a lifetime of activism shortly after receiving her
Ph.D. in 1940. Her studies in world philosophy had opened her mind to question
the system and nurtured her passion for working for change. She was involved in
many causes in the 1940s but found a niche working with the African American community.
This led to her meeting her future husband, activist and autoworker James Boggs
-- for 40 years they lived in Detroit and worked together for change until he
died in 1993.
During
the Civil Rights era, Grace Lee Boggs favored Malcolm X's Black Power approach
to change over the path of nonviolence advocated by Martin Luther King, Jr. But
after race violence ravaged the city of Detroit in 1967, she realized that the
Black Power movement was caught in an us vs. them struggle, while the spiritual/philosophical/ethical
dimension of Martin Luther King's vision was a much better template for lasting
social change. After that she remained dedicated to furthering Martin Luther King's
vision of 'Beloved Community' -- creating an interconnected society in which all
people can share in the wealth of the earth. In
1992 she founded Detroit Summer, an intergenerational, multicultural youth program,
and in 2004 she helped organize the Beloved Communities Project, "an initiative
begun to identify, explore and form a network of communities committed to and
practicing the profound pursuit of justice, radical inclusivity, democratic governance,
health and wholeness, and social / individual transformation."
In
a 2007 interview with Bill Moyers, 91 year old Grace Lee Boggs' eloquent assessments
of our evolutionary/revolutionary journey toward creating a more peaceful, just
and sustainable world made it clear that she remains one of America's most vibrant
activists.
