The woman who translated many of Karl Marx's essays into
English for the first time and tried to convince Malcolm
X to run for the U.S. Senate is coming to speak at Eastern
Michigan University.
Social activist Grace Lee Boggs will be the keynote speaker
at EMU's Martin Luther King Day celebration. She will present "This
is the Time to Grow Our Souls," at the President's
Luncheon, Monday, Jan. 15, 2007, noon, in the EMU Student
Center Grand Ballroom. Her keynote, which will draw on
the essay, "Thinking Dialectically Toward Community," will
be presented at 3 p.m. in Pease Auditorium.
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Boggs |
Luncheon ticket prices are $18 for EMU students and $28
for faculty and staff. Tickets can be purchased for full
tables of eight or individually, using university requisition
(box office only), cash, check, or credit
card. Tickets will be available beginning
Dec. 18 and can be purchased at
the EMU Convocation Center Box Office, Student Center Box
Office and Quirk Theatre Box Office, Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5
p.m.; by phone, 487-2282; or online at www.emich.edu/convocation.
"I first heard Grace Lee Boggs speak when she was
89. She is a living breathing revolution," said
Jessica "Decky"
Alexander, co-chair of the MLK Jr. Celebration Planning
Committee. "As part of the MLK celebration, we have
not had a recent opportunity to listen to one of Detroit's
civil rights pioneers. Grace Lee Boggs was and is an immense
presence in the civil rights movement. Even at her age
of 91, she is still working to mobilize, empower communities
and people to speak 'truth to power.'"
Boggs is an author, speaker and activist who has dedicated
more than 60 years of her life to political involvement
in some of the major social movements of this century,
including labor, civil rights, black power, Asian American,
women's and environmental justice.
Born to Chinese immigrant parents in Providence, R.I.
in 1915, Boggs received a scholarship to study at Bernard
College. She received her bachelor's degree in 1935, and
went on to receive a Ph.D. in philosophy from Bryn Mawr
College in 1940.
Facing significant barriers in the academic world as a
woman of color in the 1940s, Boggs took a job at low wages
at the University of Chicago Philosophy Library. Attracted
to their activism on tenants' rights, Boggs joined the
far left Workers Party and began her lifetime mission of
activism.
Boggs is best known for her collaboration with C.L.R.
James and Raya Dunayevskaya in forming the Johnson-Forest
tendency. The group focused mostly on marginalized groups,
such as women, African-Americans and youth. Boggs wrote
under the party pseudonym, "Ria Stone," for many years
until the group split into factions.
In 1953, she married African-American labor activist James
Boggs and moved to Detroit. The two worked together in
grassroots groups and projects for more than 40 years until
James Boggs' death in 1993. Their co-authored book, "Revolution
and Evolution in the Twentieth Century," was published
in 1974.
Boggs, along with her husband and others, founded Detroit
Summer in 1992. Detroit Summer is a multi-racial, inter-generational
collective, working to transform the community by confronting
problems with creativity and critical thinking. Their current
projects include organizing youth-led, media arts projects;
community-wide potlucks, speak-outs and parties. Boggs
is currently active with the group, as well as the Freedom
Schoolers and the weekly Michigan Citizen.
"Living for Change," Boggs' autobiography, was published
by the University of Minnesota Press in 1998. Currently
in its second printing, the book is widely used in university
classes on social movements, autobiography writing and
Detroit history.
Her many honors include a Lifetime Commitment Award from
the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights; a Lifetime Achievement
Award from the Michigan Women's Federation; a Women's Lifetime
Achievement award from the Anti-Defamation League; and
a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Detroit City Council.
A plaque in her honor is displayed at the National Women's
Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, N.Y.
For more information, call Campus Life at 487-3045. For
more information about Boggs, go to www.boggscenter.org
