Abstract
The Next American Revolution is a moving and persuasive testimony from one of the greatest scholar-activists this country has ever produced. Born during World War I and earning her PhD in Philosophy from Bryn Mawr in 1940, Grace Lee Boggs was a Chinese American woman with an advanced degree who could not find a position in academia because of the exclusive and discriminatory employment practices that were the order of the day. She soon became involved in revolutionary community politics, joining forces with militant labor activists in her adopted hometown of Detroit, and radical thinkers like C.L.R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya. Boggs was later deeply involved in the Black Power movement and today is one of the most inspiring leaders of the movement to rethink and transform the post-industrial United States.
Building on her vast lived experiences and the profound implications of ecological sciences, Boggs argues that we are all connected to each other and therefore are implicated in the current crisis. This is where she articulates her vision for the next American Revolution. She asks the reader: what does it mean to be human in the twenty-first century? She declares repeatedly that, if we are to survive as a species, one of our goals has to be aimed at becoming more human human beings. That is, drawing from her reading of early Marx (Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, for example), she declares that we have to see ordinary people not just as victims of oppression but as creative subjects who can produce their own futures. Specifically and with respect to the biosphere, Boggs challenges us to rethink the place and role of human beings on Earth and in relation to all other beings on the planet to ensure an enlarged, more respectful, and sustainable sense of community. This idea nicely complements the burgeoning literature on posthumanism, which contends that if being human means that we view humans as separate from and dominant over all other species (including the planet), then we must move beyond that idea, which is generally seen as emerging from eighteenth century European Enlightenment thought. In Boggs’ estimation, we must transform ourselves from passive consumers to become active planetary and global citizens. For many of us in the United States context in particular, this will mean sacrificing—rather than agitating for more—material gains, and recognizing our troubling and violent past and present relationship with two-thirds of the world, which has resulted in growing global inequalities, climate disruption, and endless wars. She hopes that we might “…create another America that will be viewed by the world as a beacon rather than as a danger” (p. 37). While I have a deep appreciation for the motivation and vision here, readers might wonder whether such an approach might run the risk of reproducing a twenty-first century version of the American exceptionalism that contributed to our current woes in the first place.
Building on her many years of articulating a “dialectical humanism,” Boggs’ vision of social change is centered on moving beyond traditional forms of oppositional protest politics, which tend to view power as a scarce commodity to be acquired and possessed by one group versus another. Instead, she insists that social change can come about through empowerment, community building and restoration, and the practice of participatory democracy at the local scale. This is an idea that Boggs acknowledges is not new, but its time has come. For example, she points to the inspiring work that Detroit area activists have done to build community gardens in vacant lots, which now feed residents who would otherwise go hungry; or to the local schools that serve teenage mothers and their children and involve kids in community building; or Detroit Summer, a program that organizes youth to learn and share the skills needed to rebuild their communities and indeed the country; or the practice of designating Peace Zones to ensure safety and healing in neighborhoods struggling with interpersonal violence. This is all truly powerful activism, but the idea of empowerment necessarily exists in tension with the “beyond protest” model of social change, and this could be explored much more in the book. Specifically, there need be no hard and fast border between “protest” and “community building” since protest actions often serve to build relationships among activists, and community building (or restorative action) is a powerful symbol of protest and refusal of dominant institutions and policy making. Where I think Boggs is most effective on this point is when she argues that radical social change requires a “two-sided transformational process, of ourselves and of our institutions, a process requiring protracted struggle” (p. 39).
As of this writing, Boggs is 97 years old. Despite the challenges that come with aging and nearing the century mark, she writes, “…I still have most of my marbles, mainly because I am good at learning, arguably the most important qualification for a movement activist” (p. 28). Whether we are activists, scholars, or both, we all have a great deal to learn from Grace Lee Boggs’ exemplary life and work, and The Next American Revolution is a great place to begin.