Happy 110th birthday, grace
What time is it on the clock of the world?
Sixteen years ago, when millions in the United States were basking in the glow of Barack Obama’s inauguration as the fulfillment of freedom and democracy, Grace Lee Boggs cautioned that we live in a time of great danger. The American empire and the liberal capitalist order over which it ruled are in a state of collapse, provoking intense alienation and scapegoating among the U.S. populace and opening the door to a resurgence of the far right. “The situation is much more comparable to that of Germany in the 1930s than to anything that the American people have experienced up to now,” Grace warned on Democracy Now! in 2009.
In these dire times for humanity, the vision of James and Grace Lee Boggs has proven to be more prescient and urgent than ever:
They foresaw how automation and other profit-driven corporate strategies would make jobs disappear, undermining families and communities while pulling the rug out from industrial cities like Detroit and relegating millions to poverty and prison.
They foresaw how the relentless pursuit of economic growth and consumerism over political and spiritual development was poisoning our culture, destroying the environment, widening the North-South divide, and provoking an unprecedented wave of displacement and migration.
They foresaw how white supremacist hostility to Civil Rights, Black Power, social justice, and the emerging nonwhite U.S. majority prompted a dangerous counterrevolution that has now devolved into a full-on fascist assault.
But there is no time for despair. As dialectical humanists, Jimmy and Grace taught us to identify the central contradictions driving movement and change in society. The rise of the far right is not a triumph: it is a symptom of the terminal crisis of the existing order. That is why, despite the immense forces of death and destruction in our path, Grace also defined this period as a time of great hope. The opportunity to create a whole new system arises only once in 25 or more generations.
Our mission for the next generation is to name the sources of destruction, create working models of a more humane system, and build community with those who will collectively implement and sustain a new social order. Protest and rebellion against today’s atrocities are necessary but insufficient. We need critical reflection, radical philosophy, and creative knowledge production. There are millions of people of all ages—but especially youth—not only awakening to the reality that the current system is bankrupt but also making a lifelong commitment to shake the world with a new dream.
As Grace said, these are the times to grow our souls. We must see revolution as a new beginning. Starting at local scales, visionary organizing brings people together to solve practical problems (education, food, housing, health care, childcare) in ways that open up possibilities for structural and transformative change. It responds to the conflicts and division by fostering multiracial solidarity and projecting a higher level of unity of ideas and in practice.
While our task is far more daunting without Jimmy and Grace, we are called to do the work of the Ancestors. We created the James and Grace Lee Boggs Foundation based on concrete directives from Grace’s will. We are blessed to have the support of Boggs and Lee family representatives, as well as friends and activists—especially Black and Asian Americans—who have worked closely with Jimmy and/or Grace over many decades.
We invite you to join our efforts as we continue the Boggses’ legacy through revolutionary study, conversation, writing, creative arts, media making, and community building. We are working to preserve their historic home as a museum and their massive library and archives containing the wisdom of nearly every major U.S. social movement of the past century. And we are carrying on their vital leadership development and freedom schooling work to create future generations of revolutionists guided by the praxis they developed through decades of organizing in Detroit.
Movements are born of critical connections. Please join our network to connect with us and stay apprised of exciting announcements to come.
-Statement from the Board of the James and Grace Lee Boggs Foundation