Grace Lee Boggs Call: Making a new Declaration of Independence click YouTube(1776 – 2012). Let us recover our Humanity, Our Safety, Our Security. {r}evolution For the Next American Revolution
LFC
New Work & Community Production: Eyes on Detroit
By Barbara A. Stachowski, Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership and Detroit New Work Center
Jimmy Boggs (1919-1993) encouraged people to “make a way out of no way.” That is what we have been doing in Detroit as we have been grappllng with the economic devastation of the postindustrial era and have had to imagine our lives anew.
A tsunami hit us decades ago when robots began replacing human beings on factory assembly lines. Resilient Detroiters became keenly aware that, to avoid the catastrophe of another tsunami, we had to move to ‘higher ground,” to a new way of life, of work.. We call this New Work.
What is New Work and how does it promote New Cultures and New Economies? How is it different from the old culture? Continue Reading »
Thinking for ourselves
Reporting out
By Shea Howell
Week eight of the occupation.
May 14, 2013
The Office of the Emergency Manager issued its “Financial and Operating Plan” for the city of Detroit. It is a limited document. As predicted, it said Detroit is in financial trouble. It repeats the concern for the $15 billion in long-term debt and adds that the city was out of money as of April 26, having $64 million in cash but $226 million in obligations. It goes on to tell us that much of the city is “dysfunctional.” Police, fire, water, lighting, transportation, and recreation don’t work. All require an overhaul. All will be studied for plans for improvement. And we have a problem with blight. That will be studied too. And then we can expect quick action.
The New York Times summed up the report as “dire.” The Times explains, “The picture of debt and disarray he paints may be bleaker even than earlier grim portrayals.” The best the Detroit Free Press could come up with was, “It’s hard to imagine how something could be disappointing and illuminating at the same time.” Nancy Kaffer noted it is “not exactly groundbreaking.” Continue Reading »
LFC Honoring Malcolm in the 21st Century
by Grace Lee Boggs
May11-18, 2013
Over the May 18-19 weekend the Detroit Museum of African American History (MAAH ) will be celebrating the 88th birthday of Malcolm X who was born May 19, 1925 and killed February 21, 1965.
On Saturday the film Make it Plain will be shown, and my old friend University of Massachusetts Professor Bill Strickland will be speaking.
Sunday afternoon I will speak briefly about why honoring Malcolm in the 21st century has become so important. Continue Reading »
Thinking for ourselves
What matters
By Shea Howell
Week seven of the occupation
May 7, 2013
Sometimes the earth slows you down. It is planting time in Detroit. There is a rhythm and focus brought by the turning of the seasons. At long last the weariness of winter is falling away. Soil must be prepared. Soon seedlings will find their way into the thousands of urban garden and small backyard plots that have made Detroit a global leader in urban agriculture.
Such moments of slowing down and finding focus are much needed in the whirlwind of changes sweeping through our city. Continue Reading »
LFC Malcolm and Boston
By Grace Lee Boggs
Mau 4-44, 2013
Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925. So every year I think a lot about him in the month of May.
This year, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, I have been recalling his comment after President Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963.
“The chickens have come home to roost, “ he said.
Malcolm’s comment involved only seven words but those seven words were dangerous because they called upon us, the American people, to examine and challenge the policies of our government . In fact, they were so dangerous that Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad suspended Malcolm for uttering them, fearful that they would bring the wrath of the authorities down on the organization. Continue Reading »
Thinking for ourselves
Democracy in detroit?
Week six of the occupation
By She Howell
April 30, 2013
The questions being raised in Detroit are important for the whole country. Over the last few years we have seen an assault on our shared values, conventions, and civic assumptions unlike anything previously experienced in this country. Except for brief, extreme periods of Marshall Law, declared in emergency situations, no citizens of a city have had their basic rights and responsibilities so perversely violated.
These violations have been done in the name of providing financial security for the city. With each new announcement, it is clear the financial security being created is for corporate, powerful elites to profit from the pain of the people. Continue Reading »
Thinking for ourselves
New Public Trust
By Shea Howell
Week five of the occupation
April 23, 2013
It is past time for the Detroit City Council to rethink its role under occupation. Their most recent vote to approve the no-bid contract for the Jones Day law firm is one more indication that the Council has no moral compass. Even Detroit’s most consistent voice of the business community, Crain’s, acknowledged the conflict of interest inherent in the city hiring the former law firm of the current Emergency Manager.
In a forceful editorial Crain’s said: Continue Reading »
LFC Redefining the American Family
By Grace Lee Boggs
April 20 – 27 2013
This article was originally published 20 years ago in The Future: Images for the 21st Century, (read introduction to) edited by University of Michigan Professor Bunyan Bryant.
American families today are so unlike those in which human beings have traditionally raised children that it is questionable whether they should be called families at all.
Since the invention of agriculture more than 10,000 years ago, children and young people have been raised in families which included not only parents and siblings but other relatives of all ages. Within this multi-generational family growing children developed a sense of their continuity with the past and the future. Naturally and normally they each discovered that their own individual uniqueness was the result of a subtle interplay between ancestral influences and individual choices and contingencies. Surrounded by a wide variety of adult models on whose conversations they “eavesdropped”, they acquired the ability to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate behaviors. Continue Reading »
Thinking for ourselves
From Domination to Shared Community
Week four of the occupation
By Shea Howell
April 16, 2012
These are unprecedented times in Detroit. One man has the absolute power to make every decision about the public life of our city. The Emergency Manager has complete authority over every single aspect of civic responsibility. The Mayor and City Council serve at his pleasure. They have no independent decision making authority. Contracts with unions, pension funds, health care, the delivery of basic services, the priorities of the budget, the use of public money, and the disposal of public assets all rest on his authority alone. Long standing covenants designed to increase public awareness and foster accountability in elected officials are all set aside. There are no requirements for public hearings, no application of the Open Meetings Act, and no need to notify or justify decisions about the sale of public properties. Continue Reading »
Boggs Center Store
NOW AVAILABLE AT THE BOGGS CENTER STORE{R}Evolution In 21st Century
The new pamphlet consists of: Changing Concepts of Revolution “Rediscovering the American Past”. “Naming the Enemy” and “Towards a New Self-Governing America 2012The Next American Revolution
Sustainable Activism For the 21st century
The Next American Revolution by Grace Lee Boggs with Scott Kurashige Now available Hard Cover – Paper Book -Order your signed copy now. The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker’s Notebook (2009 edition)Revolution & Evolution in the Twentieth Century (2008 edition)
Living for Change (Signed by Grace Lee Boggs)
Conversations in Maine: Exploring Our Nations Future
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