In a time where Asian hate is at its highest, especially elderly Asian Americans being targeted, it is important to recognize some of the key Asian American figures in America’s history. One of these people is Grace Lee Boggs. She was a first-generation Chinese immigrant who was a human rights activist with topics such as social activism, feminism, civil rights, labor rights, and even environmental rights included.
Grace Lee Boggs was born on June 27, 1915, to two Chinese immigrants who had immigrated to the city of Providence in Rhode Island. She went to Barnard College on a scholarship where she graduated in 1935 and went on to get her Ph.D. in philosophy at Bryn Mawr College in 1940. During her education, Boggs looked to philosophers such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Polanyi, and Karl Marx. These historical figures were what influenced her to be fascinated by the process of thinking through complicated ideas and working through the challenges in them.
While looking for work after her education, she faced racism and xenophobia, so much so that she was forced to move to the midwest and take a low-paying job at the library of the University of Chicago.
While living in Chicago, she was met with the experience of systemic racism and poverty when looking at the low-income housing she shared with the African American community. Before this, it was more of a statistical issue to her but when she personally came in contact with it, she was more drawn and passionate about it. This began her passion for activism which led her to move to Detroit to work for the radical newspaper, Correspondence. This city is also where she met and married her husband James Boggs who was an African American man. They both shared the passion for activism and, together, rose to be among the most notable activists in Detroit speaking out about civil rights, Asian Americans, black power, feminism, and more.
Boggs's own personal views were more about human experience and an individual changing their own world rather than overthrowing a system while supporting non-violent protests. Boggs thought of activism as more of a philosophical question with reflection, saying each person’s views would lead them to their own viewpoints that correlate with their relation to their reality and how they valued themself as a person.
Boggs’s views on philosophy and activism created an impact on future generations. She promoted everyone’s views in a healthy debate which helped young activists emerge with their own ideas, viewpoints, and definitions of right and wrong.
By combining activism and philosophy, she introduced a new layer of complicated thinking and problem-solving in activism.
Grace Lee Boggs also evolved her thinking and activism as she matured in life which projected to the future generations of activists that it is normal to think through your views and change them as you experience new things.
Grace Lee Boggs is a prominent figure in American social history for not only encompassing major American social movements, throughout her life, in her activism but also promoting critical thinking in activism. She was not about following one person and adapting to their morals, ideals, and ideas. She encouraged young people to use the tools they had to create their own opinions and be open to their opinions changing as their experiences and the tools they had to evaluate grew and changed. Her legacy was not only left in material things like a school and honorary awards but the influenced grassroots organizers and the young activists. Her legacy was left in the way of thinking she introduced and the impressions she left on the young mind of new generations.
"History is not the past. It is the stories we tell about the past. How we tell these stories - triumphantly or self-critically, metaphysically or dialectally - has a lot to do with whether we cut short or advance our evolution as human beings." - Grace Lee Boggs
Writer and Editor: Shivika Kumar
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