Game Changer, Dr. Grace Lee Boggs

Dr. Grace Lee Boggs, activist and game changer, was the daughter of Chinese immigrants born in Providence, Rhode Island. Earning her Ph.D. in 1940 from Byrn Mawr College, Boggs, spent her adult life fighting for the rights of others by speaking out against poor living conditions that many faced, and focusing on struggles prevalent in the African American community. After marrying James Boggs, a black auto worker and fellow activist in 1953, Grace moved to Detroit where she would become a noted figure of the Detroit Black Power Movement and advocate of civil rights.

Dr. Boggs wrote five books in her lifetime, her last The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century coming four years before her death in 2015. Dr. Boggs continued to lift up her community in 1992 when she started Detroit Summer, a multicultural, intergenerational youth program that “develops youth leadership for today’s movement by involving university youth from all over the country with local youth.” In 2013 she helped open the James and Grace Lee Boggs School in Detroit, whose mission is to “nurture creative, critical thinkers who contribute to the well-being of their communities.” Serving as an activist for 70 years, Grace Lee Boggs died in 2015 at the age of 100. She continues to serve as an inspiration for community activists and we are thankful for her contributions to many of the social movements that occurred in her lifetime.