Living for Change is a weekly newsletter that provides the perspective and activities of the Boggs Center and related organizations. Thinking for Ourselves is a weekly column exploring issues in Detroit and around the Country. The column was originally published in the Michigan Citizen.
Truth Matters
Neil Barclay is getting a lot of press. As the new CEO of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Barclay has been filling up the airways, giving interviews and penning columns. All of this is in an effort to justify the opening of the exhibit entitled Slavery at Jefferson’s Monticello: Paradox of Liberty. Barclay has been the subject of major news stories, written an op-ed, and appeared on Detroit Today and Michigan Radio. Even the Non Profit Quarterly has profiled his new job.
No More Lies
This week the exhibit “Slavery at Jefferson’s Monticello: Paradox of Liberty” opened at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. The opening was greeted with spirited protests. Every day people gathered to draw attention to the horrific decision by the museum board to open an exhibit that attempts to sanitize slavery.
Making Good Trouble
Detroit joined thousands of communities across the globe celebrating International Women’s Day last weekend. Nine years ago, Grace Lee Boggs and the Boggs Center joined Cindy Estrada of the UAW to reinvigorate local celebrations.
More Than a Job
For the first time in more than a generation, Detroit will see a new auto plant. Last week, Mayor Duggan and Governor Whitmer joined leaders from Fiat-Chrysler (FCA) and the UAW to announce a possible $4.5 billion expansion that will result in 6,500 new jobs. Most of these jobs will be in Detroit.
What Detroit Future?
Detroit Future City is back in the news. After a contentious, widely criticized community engagement process, Detroit Future City produced a 50-year plan nearly a decade ago. The plan laid out a blueprint for shrinking our neighborhoods and established a framework for a transition to a whiter, wealthier city. The bankruptcy process overshadowed this effort. Now Mayor Duggan has dropped the signature concept of the plan, the shrinking of the city. Instead, Duggan is all about growth.
Jackson Learnings
This past weekend the North Dakota Study Group gathered in Jackson Mississippi to explore “different ways of thinking about schools, communities, teaching and learning.” The group was formed in 1970 to support the development of “powerful, progressive, active community rooted education.” Vito Perrone, one of the founders of the group explained in a closing speech in 2000, “Our task is to share our learning with others, engage the struggles that surround us, keep the flame of hope alive, allow possibilities for helping our children and young people to be in position to change the world.” “That,” Perrone said, “Is a standard I think is worth pursuing.”
Black Geniuses
Last week the Boggs Center hosted two conversations as part of the Black Genius series sponsored by the Michigan Roundtable. These gatherings offered an opportunity to think about our responsibilities at this “time on the clock of the world.”
Weather Changes
As some of the coldest temperatures in nearly a century move out of the Midwest, devastation is everywhere. In Detroit the thaw brought over 50 breaks in water mains, flooding streets and closing buildings. Thousands of homes, offices, schools and public facilities face burst pipes and are preparing for what will likely be intense flooding as warm weather brings rain on top of melting snow. Roads are closed as concrete crumbles.
Historical Divisions
The celebration of Martin Luther King makes it clear how difficult it is for many people in our country to look at the fullness of our history. People in power have a vested interest in turning Dr. King’s life and legacy into a shallow dream of a future where race does not matter.
Valued Choices
In the midst of the latest boil water advisory, a group of scholars and community activists released a long awaited report on Water Equity and Security in Detroit’s Water and Sewer District. The report is a thoughtful, well researched, and historically grounded analysis of the current crisis of water insecurity.
Green New Deal
Last week the journal Science warned that the oceans are heating up 40 percent faster than estimated by the UN just five years ago. This rapid heating threatens the future of all of us. Most people are aware that each year is getting warmer. The globe’s oceans have been absorbing about 93% of the heat produced by greenhouse gases. This has moderated the temperature rise on land, but is devastating for marine life, water levels, and weather patterns.
Weaponized Words
As we begin a new year, crises are intensifying. At the same time, our capacity to think clearly, to act boldly, and to envision alternative paths toward a just future are under unprecedented assault. Concepts and conventions of the past are worn out, no longer providing insight or inspiration.
In the Face of Fear
We have seen the face of fear and fascism. It is tear gas shot at barefoot children in diapers. We cannot look away. We cannot be distracted by the din of disinformation and denial.
Beyond Lame Ducks
Throughout Michigan people are rallying to challenge the Lame Duck actions of the state legislature. Protest, public demonstrations and outright mockery are tactics being deployed against a secure, smug legislative body. Many groups are placing their hopes in the Governor. They are urging us to call Gov. Snyder’s office and ask him to veto these lame-duck bills. I will join this effort, but I hold out little hope that this governor will be moved to reject the full array of bills being jammed through this legislature.
Poletown Lives
Much of the country was shocked by the announcement that General Motors (GM) is closing five production plants in the U.S. and Canada. Two of the closing are in the Detroit area. The Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant, known as the Poletown plant, after the community leveled to enable its construction, will be closed. So will the Warren Transmission Plant. Other plant scheduled for closure are in Lordstown, Ohio, White Marsh, Maryland, and Oshawa, Ontario. About 14,000 people will be affected directly: 8,000 of them salaried workers, and slightly more than 6000 factory workers. GM will reduce its total workforce by about 15%. GM stock went up by 5 percent when they announced the decision.
Pipeline Perils
The poisoning of the water in Flint Michigan was the direct result of a republican dominated lame duck legislature acting to benefit corporations and abuse democracy. Now the republican dominated lame duck legislature is threatening the waters of the Great Lakes.
A New We
This week the National Council of Elders met in Detroit. The Council was formed in 2011 by Vincent Harding and James and Phil Lawson, all veterans of the Black Liberation struggle and close associates of Martin Luther King. The purpose of the Council is “to engage leaders of 20th century civil rights movements to share what they have learned with young leaders of the 21st century and to promote the theory and practice of nonviolence.”
Democratic Decisions
Last week Detroit hosted two major national gatherings that point the way to a much better future. The first was the Black 2 Just Transition Assembly & Training organized by the Eastern Michigan Environmental Action Council. Over 100 activists who have helped forge a new consciousness about our responsibilities to one another and the earth gathered to create a progressive agenda rooted in care for one another and our earth. The second, Facing Race, brought together nearly 3000 activists, artists, intellectuals, and organizers to think together about how to create a world that welcomes, supports, and protects all people. These gatherings reminded me of how important it is to look beyond the manipulations of the White House to understand the deep possibilities of people to fashion a new way forward.
Against the Darkness
This is a time of accelerating homegrown terrorism. The Massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg followed closely behind the shooting deaths of two people in a Kroger parking lot in Kentucky. The killer had gone to the store after being unable to enter the First Baptist Church.
Weaponizing Water
Gary Brown, the director of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, recently revealed that the Duggan administration is once again threatening to use water shut offs as a weapon to clear people out of neighborhoods. Brown had scarcely concluded his interview with Bridge Magazine when Food and Water Watch released its first national assessments of water shut offs for non-payment of bills. The report entitled America’s Secret Water Crisis: National Shutoff Survey Reveals Water Affordability Emergency Affecting Millions, is a stark condemnation of the approach Duggan is taking to the water crisis.