LFC
Visionary Organizing in Detroit
By Grace Lee Boggs
Jan. 14-21, 2012
Last Saturday’s celebration of Dr. King’s birthday at the Church of the Messiah in Detroit was an instructive example of visionary organizing by members and friends of the Boggs Center.
In planning the program we recognized that finding a job is now the main concern of Detroit’s young people. Also that for most of them Dr. King and the civil rights struggle are nearly as remote as Frederick Douglass and the struggle against slavery in the 19th century. Continue Reading »
Thinking for ourselves
Foundations of public good
By Shea Howell
January 3, 2012
The Occupy Wall Street movement has opened up the conversation about the control the 1% have over public policy. While we all know that much of this control comes through good old-fashioned campaign contributions and high priced lobbyists, the role of foundations in directing policy has been less understood. But more and more, journalists are exploring the murky world of foundation decision making and the outsized influence these foundations have on public policy.
Nowhere is this influence clearer than in the city of Detroit. In spite of the turmoil over a looming financial collapse, Mayor Bing chose to emphasize the return of the Detroit Works Project. This foundation led initiative to redesign the city was widely considered a failure. It succeeded only in increasing tensions, decreasing public trust, and enraging many citizens who believe that downsizing Detroit means moving people out of their homes and neighborhoods. Continue Reading »
This week’s LFC
Celebrating Dr. King’s birthday in 2012
By Grace Lee Boggs
Jan. 7-14, 2012
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Born on January 15, 1929, he was only 39 years old.
To honor King’ life Detroit Congressman John Conyers and Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke promptly introduced a bill in Congress to make his birthday a national holiday. In 1981 Stevie Wonder popularized the campaign with his “Happy Birthday” song, and in1983 President Reagan signed a bill, proposed by Representative Katie Hall of Indiana, creating a federal holiday to honor King.
It was an important victory. But like most victories, it presented us with a new and more challenging question. How do we celebrate King’s birthday in a way that makes his life meaningful to future generations? How do we keep him from being coopted, canonized, or commercialized as Jesus Christ (Christmas and Black Friday) and George Washington and Abraham Lincoln (Presidents weekend) have been? Continue Reading »
Thinking for Ourselves
Lessons from Marathon?
By Shea Howell
The refusal of the corporate elite and foundations to acknowledge the failure of Detroit Works is reaching laughable proportions. Last week, Stephen Henderson of the Detroit Free Press and American Black Journal on PBS hosted a show touting the Marathon Petroleum Company’s effort to buy out homeowners in Oakwood Heights as a possible model for Mayor Bing’s efforts at “neighborhood consolidation.” This show followed an editorial by Mr. Henderson echoing the same theme. Mr. Henderson wrote:
“Marathon’s effort might best be described as Detroit Works writ small, a laboratory to see how some of your biggest ideas about creating density and emptying out dying neighborhoods might actually play out. There should be lots to learn.” Continue Reading »
New Work, New Culture
Technology and the shrinking job market could liberate us from meaningless work and allow us to do things we care deeply about.
An interview with Frithjof Bergmann, by Sarah van Gelder
According to philosopher and community catalyst Frithjof Bergmann, we are less free than we think, surrounded as we are by endless trivial choices. We will only really be free when we have the option of doing things with our lives that we care deeply about. The current job crisis, in which thousands find themselves unable to work in their fields, is forcing many people to reconsider what they want to do with their lives. Frithjof Bergmann started New Work to encourage that exploration at the deepest levels and to teach the skills that will enable people to make their dreams a reality. If many people were empowered to make these kinds of choices, the ripple effects would be felt throughout the culture. Frithjof Bergmann has worked with individuals and communities in the US, Canada, and Germany on developing positive strategies for dealing with the changing nature of work. He is also a professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan, author of On Being Free (University of Notre Dame Press, 1988) and founder of the Center for New Work., 2200 Fuller Road, Suite 1204B, Ann Arbor, MI 48105. Continue Reading »
Thinking for ourselves
Foundations of public good
By Shea Howell
January 3, 2012
The Occupy Wall Street movement has opened up the conversation about the control the 1% have over public policy. While we all know that much of this control comes through good old-fashioned campaign contributions and high priced lobbyists, the role of foundations in directing policy has been less understood. But more and more, journalists are exploring the murky world of foundation decision making and the outsized influence these foundations have on public policy.
Nowhere is this influence clearer than in the city of Detroit. In spite of the turmoil over a looming financial collapse, Mayor Bing chose to emphasize the return of the Detroit Works Project. This foundation led initiative to redesign the city was widely considered a failure. It succeeded only in increasing tensions, decreasing public trust, and enraging many citizens who believe that downsizing Detroit means moving people out of their homes and neighborhoods.
The return of Toni Griffin to the leadership of the project demonstrates just how little the mayor and the foundations paying her salary understand about their flawed process. Rather than acknowledging to the public that the whole idea has been badly handled, the re-launched Detroit Works Project seems to think it has a public relations problem. Its emphasis now is convincing citizens to agree with its decisions. Charles Cross, the co-director of community engagement, stresses the openness of the group to answer questions. He explains that the new location in Eastern Market gives a place where “people can walk off the street and talk to somebody. Not somebody who takes their name and passes along a message, but somebody who is right there and is knowledgeable about the project.” Continue Reading »
LFC for the January 1 , 2012 issue
2011 – A YEAR TO REMEMBER
By Grace Lee Boggs
12-31-2011 – January 7, 2012
2011 opened with the Arab Spring when the people of North Africa decolonized themselves, thrilling the world with their nonviolent gatherings, ousting the dictators the United States has supported to secure its access to Mideast oil.
The world’s eyes next focused on the struggle to defend the collective bargaining rights of Wisconsin public workers against the right-wing attacks coordinated by Governor Scott Walker. The growing mobilization swelled to tens of thousands of union members, their families, and supporters.
By the fall of the year hundreds of thousands had participated in the Occupy Wall Street movement and its offshoots throughout the nation and across the globe., We./they were righteously and rightfully protesting corporate domination of our culture and the suffering that it is producing.,
“We/They were also taking back our government, taking back our humanity, ”
as Danny Glover put it at the Oakland Mall, on October 15.
The ongoing struggles of 2011, from the Arab Spring to Wisconsin and the Occupy/Decolonize movement and our current crises, were rooted in the decline of the empire which made possible the middle-class standard of living and the welfare state with its thousands of public employees to take care of tasks for which we, the people , must become increasingly responsible.
With the end of empire, we are coming to an end of the epoch of Rights. We have entered the epoch of Responsibilities, which requires new, more socially-minded human beings and new more participatory and place-based concepts of citizenship and democracy. Continue Reading »
Thinking for ourselves
Sacred Sacrifices
By Shea Howell
December 19, 2011
This is a sacred season. Ancient traditions celebrate the turning of the earth and the darkest of nights. For others it is the festival of lights, the beginning of the Christian year, and the celebration of African wisdom. For all of us, this is the first time in nearly a decade when the U.S. will no longer be officially at war in Iraq. Under cover of darkness, the last combat troops convoyed out of Iraq, bringing to an end one of the most deadly and destructive military efforts ever mounted by the U.S. Continue Reading »
ReImagining Organizing, Movements, and Leadership – 1
By Adrienne Maree Brown
Over the December 9-10 weekend we hosted ReImagining Organizing, Movements, and Leadership gatherings in Detroit.
We had been planning the weekend ever once we heard that Margaret Wheatley author and organizational development consultant, was going to be in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and wanted to come to Detroit.
Wheatley’s best-selling book Leadership in the New Science:: Discovering Order in a Chaotiic World was written 20 years ago, the same year Detroit Summer was founded.
When Wheatley came down with pneumonia, we were disappointed, but we adapted.
On Friday evening, we had an intimate dinner with leaders from various networks across Detroit. Saturday afternoon we held a large public event at the Cass Corridor Commons, followed by a youth-focused evening at the Furniture Factory. Continue Reading »
Thinking for ourselves
Doing different things
By Shea Howell
December 17-24- 2011
Something new is emerging in Detroit. In quiet, patient, persistent ways people in our city are developing a culture of strength and compassion. Far from the media glare and the often cynical notions of elected officials, Detroiters are probing deep questions of our humanity and how we will live together.
Last week the Coalition Against Police Brutality held its annual holiday party at the international institute. About 60 people came together to celebrate with one another and to draw support from a deepening sense of community. At first glance, this was a gathering like many at holiday times. There was music, people danced the hustle, told stories, and played with children. There was wonderful food, and warm, festive decorations. But this was a gathering of people who had experienced almost unimaginable loss. Children taken from life by thoughtless moments, or lost to us in the course of senseless anger. Opening to the pain of parents was central the gathering. Continue Reading »
STORE
NOW AVAILABLE AT THE BOGGS CENTER STORE 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
Let's Talk About Malcolm & Martin
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