{R}Evolution in the 21st Century

The Boggs Center has just published {R} Evolution in the 21st Century, a pamphlet of special interest to (1) readers of The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism in the 21st Century and (2) participants in Detroit Summer 2012, July 1-15.

The new pamphlet consists of: Changing Concepts of Revolution “Rediscovering the American Past”. “Naming the Enemy” and “Towards a New Self-Governing America.”

“Rediscovering The American Past” is chapter 7 in the book Revolution and Evolution in the 20th Century by James and Grace Lee Boggs. Originally published in 1974 by Monthly Review Press, RETC was re-issued in 2008 as a revolutionary classic with a new 40 page introduction by Grace.

Rediscovering The American Past” provides a historical context for today’s American Revolution by tracing the origins and contradictions of the first American Revolution. It challenges us to leave behind the backward values of our past: racism, sexism, materialism, militarism, ageism, ableism, homophobia.

“Towards a New Self-Governing America” is the second chapter of the American Manifesto.

Originally published in 1982, this article shows us how to go beyond Rejections to Projections.

Recognizing that the old American Dream is dead, it is now up to us to create a new American Dream of beloved community and of what it means to be a human being in the 21st century.

It provides a program for going beyond Protest to Resistance by forming community councils, community gardens, and peace zones that bring the neighbor back to the ‘hood.

It is a program for Visionary Organizing to create Cities of Hope.

Turning Detroit into a City of Hope is what Detroiters have been doing since the 1980s when the devastation of deindustrialization made clear to us that we were coming to the end of the industrial epoch.

Copies of {R} Evolution in the 21st Century, 45 pp. are $5.00 each + $1.50 Sh. Order from Boggs Center, 3061 Field St. Detroit MI 48214. http://www.boggscenter.or paypal