Places of Practice
Three years ago, the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police sparked the largest spontaneous resistance movement in this country. Now, as we enter the fourth summer since the beginning of public protests, we are faced with a resurgence of the white power structure, intent not only on maintaining its hold, but expanding forms of violence, authority, and control.
This collective experience of the potential of movements to create change and the consequent backlash, brings urgent questions to those of us committed to creating a just society. What is the difference between mass mobilization and organizing? What is the relationship between reform and revolution? Does electoral politics matter? How do we build long term community power? What kind of future do we want?
These questions provided a framework for the recent discussion hosted by the Boggs Center to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of James Boggs’ first book, The American Revolution. This conversation was part of an ongoing series: Creating Futures Now! A Year of Visionary )rganizing.
The conversation began with Stephen Ward emphasizing that in The American Revolution, Boggs names the fundamental contradiction in the United States as the contradiction between economic and technological overdevelopment and political and social underdevelopment. Identifying this contradiction became central to the kind of visionary, relationship-driven, place-based politics that James and Grace evolved.
Julia Putnam, one of the cofounders of the James and Grace Lee Boggs school, talked about her own growth through engaging in practices that “called on the best part of me, the part that questioned the world and wanted to make a difference.” She talked about how as a young person in Detroit Summer in 1992 she learned she was capable of being of service and of use and that she could impact her community. She said, “My whole life is about passing on those ideas and conversations, building relationships that turn into direct action.”
Myrtle Thompson-Curtis, a cofounder of Feedom Freedom Growers talked about having her “heart pricked by questions about how we are doing the work of transformation.” As a native east side Detroiter she said she had seen so many changes and challenges, but for her, the journey of transformation began when she first became a single mother. Through mothering and then gardening with her life partner, Wayne, she learned the work of transformation means feeding people internally and externally. She said it has been a journey through love, of people reaching from their heart to hers. She talked about what it means to be committed to a place, to stay long enough to get something done, and to do it with love.
Robin Kelley talked about how his own thinking has been changed and challenged, especially as he encountered The American Revolution in 1981. He talked about the vision of a beloved community as spaces of constant struggle in the dialectical tensions of being and becoming, attempting to widen the circle of inclusion. He said he has come to think about the role of critical connections, rather than mass mobilizations, as central to creating movements. He noted that in one sense it was the critical connections, the webs of relationships, that enabled the black liberation struggles of the 1960’s to emerge, especially in the south. He also talked about the need to listen deeply to all of life around us, to our ancestors, and especially our children.
The conversation moved toward talking of our children as Julia asked how can we think beyond what we even believe is possible? This was the heart of the lessons from Freedom Schools, that even at a time when people could not vote, when critical thinking meant death, people imagined it was important to create spaces where people could learn together, could practice democracy, could develop the skills of active citizenship, and learn to resolve differences. School, and education should be about how we become more free. This means we must develop practices that enable us collectively, critically, and creatively examine what is and what can be.
The conversation concluded with an emphasis on what is ahead for us. The forces of fascism are gaining strength, but movements do not simply emerge in response to oppression and misery. Rather, as Robin Kelley said, “They come out of the belief that misery can end, that people can figure out things, and things can change because of the people around you.”
That is why much of what is happening in Detroit matters. In many places and spaces in our city people are experimenting with how life could be, with what it means to be of use, to be committed to each other, to the land that supports us, to creating art that nourishes and sustains us. In these liberated spaces of practice, we are striving for new ways of being rooted in joy and love. You can see the full conversation here.