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Living For Change: An Autobiography
"More than a deeply moving memoir, this is a book of revelation. Grace Lee Boggs, Chinese American, middle class, highly educated, discovers through her encounters with remarkable rebels, blue collars as well as philosophers, where the body is buried: who is doing what to whom in our society. It is an adventure that is truly liberating". Studs Terkel"Grace Lee Boggs has ma
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Paperback
,
328 pages
Published
March 1st 1998
by Univ Of Minnesota Press
(first published 1998)
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Community Reviews
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This book provides insight into Boggs personal, political and ideological development throughout a significant chunk of the 20th century. Through decades of experiences as a participant in the American Left and Black Liberation Movements, Boggs life also reveals the ideological and political evolution of these movements. Her experiences often show a unique perspective of America social movement history because she participated in parts of movements that were less central to the broader movement,
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I have owned this book for many years (I found the original receipt for its purchase stuck in the middle pages) but didn't have the temperament, attention, and interest to begin a serious reading of it until now. Nkenge Zo!@ was a comrade in radical community politics in Detroit with James Boggs and Grace Lee Boggs, and when I met her in the 1980s she would often make references to NOAR (National Organization for an American Revolution) but I was young and not particularly interested in becoming
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I really enjoyed this book. I am surprised more people have not read it and written reviews on Goodreads. I was inspired to read it after Grace Lee Boggs visited Los Angeles and I heard so much about the conversations she had with local activists while she was here.
I haven't read many memoirs/autobiographies by political activists. It was fascinating to see how she lived her life as a self-identified revolutionary, how she created her life in that vision. The conflicts and ideological rifts bet ...more
I haven't read many memoirs/autobiographies by political activists. It was fascinating to see how she lived her life as a self-identified revolutionary, how she created her life in that vision. The conflicts and ideological rifts bet ...more
I cannot believe that I spent 63 years without hearing Grace Lee Boggs until I heard an interview with her on Pacifica radio (WPFW in DC). I immediately ordered this book and began this part of my education in social activism.
Ossie Davis calls this book "a feast for the hungering heart - or even a picnic". And so it is.
And, I find much to consider here... what I'm taking away right now is that we are each called to live in sustainable community and she's living that in her home of Detroit.
Ossie Davis calls this book "a feast for the hungering heart - or even a picnic". And so it is.
And, I find much to consider here... what I'm taking away right now is that we are each called to live in sustainable community and she's living that in her home of Detroit.
As other reviewers have mentioned, Grace Lee Boggs speaks very little on her feelings and regrets over the past 80-some years, but that by no means diminishes the value of the book. In describing her childhood and the influence of Chinese values on her personality, she talks about waking up from anaesthesia after a tonsil operation and immediately asking "How are the others?" instead of worrying about herself. Her autobiography is similarly concerned with what was going on around her, and she of
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She concentrates on her political relationships with people, including her husband Jimmy Lee Boggs. I would have liked to have known more about the personal dynamics of some of her relationships over the years. Still, an interesting read and an eye-opener of Detroit activism and organizing from the civil rights era to the present.
great picture of a woman whose 60 + year trajectory as an activist in the civil rights struggle should inspire us all. the description of the unfortunate schisms and splits in the radical left of the 30's 40's and 50's is sad but instructive.
Yes! Found this book to be incredibly inspiring, just so much wisdom. During the course of reading this book, found myself constantly quoting from it in conversations.
I watched Grace Lee Boggs on
Bill Moyers Journal
. She's been involved in most of social movements post the Depression.
Unfortunately, this book suffers from three problems.
1) She provides many details describing the nuances of the debates between the groups involved in the social movements without providing the context so that one can understand the nuances. The result is boring and long-winded. This is particularly true in chapter three while she talks about the communist movement.
2) Her writ ...more
Unfortunately, this book suffers from three problems.
1) She provides many details describing the nuances of the debates between the groups involved in the social movements without providing the context so that one can understand the nuances. The result is boring and long-winded. This is particularly true in chapter three while she talks about the communist movement.
2) Her writ ...more
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I started this years ago, got to the last chapter and a half, and inextricably put it down. I recently picked it back up and finished it. It's a nice autobiography of Grace Lee Boggs and her husband Jimmy. It's focus is definitely socialism with a heavy nod toward the Marxist-Leninist strand. The politics weren't my favorite part, but it did offer some honest insight regarding this tendency in socialism as it is not an area of thought I'm dedicated to reading about. The last chapter offers some
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I really got a lot out of this book...I especially liked the way Grace Lee Boggs' lifelong experiences at the center of radical activism in Detroit illuminated the historical discussions in Robin D.G. Kelley's
Freedom Dreams
, which i really love.
Boggs also had a helpful analysis of the nature of organizing as related to social justice, seeing it as dialectical, or always changing and rife with conflict. In this way, she showed that what are often perceived as "failures" of the left--splinters, ...more
Boggs also had a helpful analysis of the nature of organizing as related to social justice, seeing it as dialectical, or always changing and rife with conflict. In this way, she showed that what are often perceived as "failures" of the left--splinters, ...more
Grace Boggs gives the reader an inside view of not only the Civil Rights Movement, but of the struggle to rebuild Detroit through grassroots efforts. I agree with other reviewers that it is more of a history than an autobiography. I also feel that Grace Boggs writes more about other people's efforts than about her own. I hope that somebody else will come forward to write more closely about Grace's role in all the causes she fought for and still fights for, even at the age of 100.
I heard a story on NPR on "Grace Lee Boggs, Activist and American Revolutionary turns 100"
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitc...
. I wondered how I had never heard of her, so I tracked down her autobiography...
I had the fortunate opportunity to meet her in Detroit when I worked for her nonprofit org. She's a remarkable woman and an inspiration. Just a synopsis of her life if you don't know her: She was on the front lines with MLK walking down Woodward Ave during the Civil Rights movement and was one of the major founders of the movement.
Great plug for archives - and all the great stuff at the Reuther in Detroit - a pretty amazing story of a woman committed to making the world a better place. Revolutionary vision.
Interesting for picture of the left around CLR James, and the fair left in Detroit, the language gets wooden towards the end. And it's true about what they say about Trotskyists.
Dec 26, 2009
Yvette
added it
I learned from this fascinating woman that it is possible to transcend class and racial biases. And that a better society is possible and perhaps just around the corner.
Her entire life has seen so much change. I think the philosophy that she espouses can save our planet. "We are the leaders we have been looking for".
Sep 01, 2007
Morag Kydd
marked it as to-read
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
people interested in politics and history
how it was done.
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