Civil rights activists and Asian American icon Grace Lee Boggs turns 100 on Saturday.
The life of the leader in the labor, Black power and civil rights movement in Detroit will be celebrated at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Midtown tomorrow.
She was also honored at the Allied Media Conference on June 21.
Boggs work was told nationally in the Peabody Award winning documentary American Revolutionary by Grace Lee (no relation) which aired on PBS.
She is currently in hospice care, but her legacy will live on forever.
The Metro Times did a nice piece on the impact Boggs has made in the motor city.
“There are probably very few 100-year-old revolutionaries still around,” said Shea Howell, who teaches at Oakland University in southeast Michigan. “In this past year, we’ve all thought about the potential loss of Grace and her transition, but also about her contributions. The birthday is a place to celebrate the people, the connections, and the work that she has done much of that century here in Detroit.”
Boggs is credited with nurturing the urban garden movement in Detroit through work with the senior citizens group the Gardening Angels and the Detroit Summer youth program. The Boggs School which nurtures creative and critical thinkers among our youth is part of her legacy as is the Boggs Center,
“Seeing how Grace and people in the Boggs network changed people, now I know that one person can truly make a difference and can make a worldwide impact,” said Kim Sherobbi, a Boggs Center board member.
You can read more about the life of Grace Lee Boggs in the Metro Times .
