Detroiter Grace Boggs, longtime labor, civil-rights champion dies at age 100

By Wendell Bryant/Tell Us Detroit

DETROIT (Tell Us Det) - Grace Lee Boggs died peacefully in her sleep at her home on Field Street in Detroit this morning. She had recently celebrated her 100th birthday at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

Rich Feldman, a Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership board member, as well as longtime friend Sharon Howell, confirmed her death.

President Obama released a statement saying, "Michelle and I were saddened to hear of the passing of author, philosopher, and activist Grace Lee Boggs. Grace dedicated her life to serving and advocating for the rights of others – from her community activism in Detroit, to her leadership in the civil rights movement, to her ideas that challenged us all to lead meaningful lives. As the child of Chinese immigrants and as a woman, Grace learned early on that the world needed changing, and she overcame barriers to do just that."

Boggs, has been referred to as the "Heart and Soul of Detroit's Activist Community" for her decades of dedication and leadership in labor, civil rights, and Black Power movements. She helped organize the 1963 March down Woodward Avenue with Dr. Martin Luther King and the Grass Roots Leadership Conference with Malcolm X. Her life was documented in the film "American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs," a documentary that debuted in 2014 on PBS stations.

After her husband, Jimmy Boggs, died in 1993, in 1995 she founded the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership. A charter school in her name opened a few years ago.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said, "Grace Lee Boggs was a force for promoting social change, and we were lucky she chose to call Detroit her home. Through her activism, she fought for civil rights, social justice and income equality. She made Detroit -- and the world -- a better place."

Boggs 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 and demanded 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.

Boggs was born in 1915 in Providence, R.I., the child of Chinese immigrants, but she grew up in New York City, where her father owned a Chinese restaurant on Broadway. She won a scholarship to Barnard College for undergraduate studies, and earned a doctorate from Bryn Mawr College in 1940.

Boggs came to Detroit in the early 1950s to write for The Correspondence, a socialist newspaper.

In 1992, the Boggses founded Detroit Summer, a nonprofit aimed at giving young Detroiters not just somewhere to go but a sense of pride and ownership in their communities. The group plants community gardens, paints murals, and is affiliated with a no- or low-cost bicycle shop that provides Detroit Summer kids transportation to and from the program.

“Grace died as she lived, surrounded by books, politics, people and ideas,” said Alice Jennings and Shea Howell, two of her Trustees.

A memorial celebrating her life will be announced later.