Biography of: Grace Lee Boggs
Author: Erick Barbare
Timeline
Leadership Style
Political Philosophy
Timeline
- June 27,1915 Grace, a Chinese-American, was born in downtown Providence, RI
- 1931 Grace enrolled at Bernard College.
- 1935 Grace graduated from Bernard College, enrolled at Bryn Mawr College in Manhattan as a graduate student.
- Fall 1940 Grace joins the Workers Party, a Trotskyist group that had split from the Socialist Workers Party
- 1953 Grace marries Jimmy Boggs, a black social activist
- 1961 Grace and others formed the Independent Negro Committee to Ban the Bomb and racism. This group was formed in response to the Women Strike for Peace Movement, who did not protest civil rights issues for "fear of alienating their white constituents." Most African-Americans did not protest the bomb because they felt it was a "white issue." The INCBB was a group that protested both the existence of the atomic bomb and the current plight of the African-American.
- 1970 Grace formed the Detroit branch of the Asian Political Alliance. This group studied Chinese and Japanese history, and showed films depicting the changes taking place in the Chinese Revolution. They also participated in anti- Vietnam war demonstrations locally and nationally.
- Nov. 1976 Jimmy and Grace began the National Organization for the American Revolution, a group that was created to reverse the trend of "incorporating blacks into the system as a self-interest group, so that blacks had lost their moral authority." Essentially, Grace and James felt that many African-Americans were becoming complacent in their lives, and they were no longer fighting for their rights. Jimmy and Grace wanted to create a movement that rekindled the fire that many people had in the 1960's.
- 1982 Jimmy and Grace publish the Manifesto for an American Revolutionary Party in conjunction with other NOAR leaders. This Manifesto blames capitalism for many of the evils in American society, and called for a "New Self-Governing America based on Self-Government, strong families and communities, and decentralized economies."
- 1983 NOAR begins to fall apart. Meetings of the group began to be fractious, and members began to resign. One main concern many members had was the fact that the organization had gone beyond the idea of advancing the black movement, which was the goal of the movement at the outset, and had started taking on issues that did not deal with blacks. One member wrote a letter saying, "Jimmy (Grace's husband, co-leader of NOAR) used to be black, he had become gray, no doubt because he had been painted with a yellow brush." (Remember that Grace is a Chinese-American.) This was the first time that Grace's position "as a Chinese American in the leadership of the organization had ever been challenged publicly."
- Late 1980's Grace joins the Exploratory Project on the Conditions of Peace, a small group of scholars and activists that met to explore a peace system to replace the current war system.
- 1988 Jimmy, Grace and others join the United Detroiters against Gambling, a group organized to fight the legalization of casino gambling in the city of Detroit.
- Jan. 1992 Jimmy, Grace, and others begin Detroit Summer, an " International Multicultural Youth Program/Movement to rebuild, redefine respirit Detroit form the Ground Up.
- July 22, 1993 Jimmy Boggs died.
- Jan. 17, 2000 Grace Lee gives speech commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on radio station WORT in Madison, Wisconsin.
Source: Living for Change, an autobiography (1998)
Leadership Style
Grace Lee Boggs not only led but also was a member of many different social movements. Whenever a situation arose that she and her friends felt that there needed a change to exist, a movement would begin. Some of these movements were short lived, while others lasted for many years.
Throughout the course of her very politically active life, Grace Lee has been called upon to lead various social movements. There was probably not ever a time when she led a movement of her own, as she was most often joined by her activist husband, James Boggs. Grace and Jimmy founded and co-led many different social movements over their many years together.
The leadership style of Grace Lee could best be described as either a democratic or laissez- faire style. While Grace Lee quite often provided the rhetoric and motivation of a movement, she never really assumed the "throne" of a movement and dictated what the other members would do. In her autobiography, she describes a love for group meetings and the discussions that took place. She liked the idea of very many different ideas of a group being brought forward, and she describes the differences of a group to be "enriching."
In the movements that Boggs was involved in, most often group decisions were made democratically, with the consent of the group involved. Some of the groups that she was involved in were rather loosely affiliated, with many external projects taking place in the name of the movement, in a laissez-faire fashion. An example of this is the NOAR, with many different local affiliates. Although Jimmy and Grace began the movement, they exercised little control over the local branches. The locals often conducted their own activities, such as the distribution of leaflets by certain branches of the NOAR supporting Jesse Jackson in the presidential election of 1984.
Political Philosophy
Grace Lee's political philosophy often called for sweeping changes in American society and government. In one of her most visible works, The Manifesto for an American Revolutionary Party, blamed capitalism for all of society's evils and called for communities to come together and protect themselves against this "capitalist enemy."
Boggs's political philosophy can best be described as Radicalism, with her arguments falling in both the insurgent and innovative categories. In her Manifesto, Boggs blames capitalism, a societal norm in America, and Big Business as the evils that must be changed. She describes the exploitive nature of capitalism and Big Business: " By exploiting the natural resources of our planet with the same single-mindedness as it has exploited our human resources (social ties), it(capitalism) has despoiled the Land, Waters and Air on which our lives and those of future generations depend."
She also describes what capitalism has done to our relationships: "In its limitless quest for profits capitalism has defiled all our human relationships by turning them into money relationships: Health, Education, Sports. Art and Culture, even Sex and Religion, have all become Big Business."
Boggs's solution can best be described as innovational, since it is a new idea but sounds traditional. It is also non-violent. She calls for local "Self-Government, strong families and communities, and decentralized economies. Communities need to create Committees for Crime Prevention that will establish and enforce elementary standards of conduct… Committees to Take Over Abandoned Houses for the use of community residents… Committees to Take Over Neighborhood Schools that are failing to educate our children or to take over closed-down schools so as to provide continuing education for our children… Committees to Resist Utility Cutoffs by companies which, under the guise of public service, are in reality seeking higher profits to pay higher dividends to their stockholders." There is never a mention for people to take up violence to satisfy these ends.
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