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Grace
Lee
Boggs
author
of “The
Next
American
Revolution”
Speaks
Out
By Karen
Hudson
Samuels/Tell
Us USA
News
Network
 DETROIT
(Tell Us
USA) -
At 96
years of
age, the
legendary
social
activist,
philosopher
and
author
Grace
Lee
Boggs
still
commands
an
audience,
as she
did
Wednesday
evening
during a
lecture
at the
Detroit
Historical
Museum
for
Black
History
Month.
The
audience
was
captivated
as
Boggs,
began to
speak,
“People
from all
over the
world
and the
country
are
coming
to
Detroit
these
days to
get a
sense of
the next
American
Revolution.”
With the
eyes of
the
world
watching,
she said
Detroit
is the
“place
and
space”
to begin
anew, to
confront
the
realities
of
globalization’s
impact
on the
economy
and the
environment.
Nationally,
Boggs
said
Detroit
has
become
the
center
of the
“Growing
Power”
agricultural
movement
with
thousands
of
community
gardens
throughout
the
city.
“We are
being
admired
and
respected”,
she
said,
not for
the
urban
blight,
but
instead
“For our
ability
to make
something
out of
nothing,
to make
a way
out of
no way”
by those
who come
from
around
the
country.
“Out of
vacant
lots
with old
tires
and dead
cats
people
have
created
gardens
for
their
community.”
Their
impact
Boggs
said has
been
more
than
just
nutritious
food. It
has been
an
education
for
young
people
on where
food
comes
from and
how it
is
harvested
and
packaged.
The
revolutionary
message
of Grace
Lee
Boggs
may
sound
simple
yet has
profound
implications:
Detroiters
must
feel a
sense of
pride,
to grow
our
souls
with
humanity,
to
become
participants
in our
future,
not
spectators.
In her
book
“The
Next
American
Revolution”
and
during
her
speech,
Boggs
brings a
new
perspective
to a
range of
social
issues.
Take
health
care,
Boggs
writes
that it
is being
viewed
as
commodity
to be
consumed.
This
shifts
the
debate
away
from
real
solutions
to
health
care.
The
result
Boggs
says is
we wind
up
“focusing
on
health
insurance
instead
of the
issue of
health
care.”
Insurance
programs,
she
writes,
have
more to
do with
“feeding
the
already
monstrous
medical-industrial
complex
than our
physical,
mental,
and
spiritual
health.”
For
those
who
don’t
know
Grace
Lee
Boggs
has been
part of
almost
every
movement
of the
20th
century
from
civil
rights
to labor
rights
to human
rights.
Born in
United
State to
Chinese
immigrants,
Boggs
earned a
PhD in
philosophy
in the
1930’s
and says
in her
book she
realized
how
unlikely
it would
be to
land a
job at a
university.
She
writes
that
even
department
stores
would
come
right
out and
say “We
don’t
hire
Orientals”.
Boggs
moved to
Detroit
during
World
War II
at a
time
when A.
Phillip
Randolph
was
fighting
defense
plants
to hire
blacks.
The
success
of that
struggle
says
Boggs
inspired
her to
get
involved
in the
movement
and
dedicate
her life
to being
an
activist
in the
black
community.
She
married
Jimmy
Boggs, a
black
man who
worked
at
Chrysler
Jefferson
plant
and
together
they
become
involved
in the
black
power
movement
and
dedicated
advocates
of Dr.
Martin
Luther
King.
"We
could no
longer
separate
ethics
from
politics
or view
revolutionary
struggle
simply
in terms
of us
vs.
them.”
Grace
Lee
Boggs.
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