WEBVTT

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I feel for so sorry for people
who are not living in Detroit.

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Detroit gives a sense of
epochs of civilization

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in a way that you don’t
get in a city like New York.

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I mean, it’s obvious by looking
at that what was doesn’t work.

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People are always
striving for size.

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Be a giant.

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And this is a symbol
of how giants fall.

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Evolution is not linear.
Times interact.

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History, that’s a story not only
of the past but of the future.

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It’s hard when you’re young

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to understand how reality
is constantly changing

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because it hasn’t changed that
much during your lifetime.

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For over a decade,

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I’ve been coming to Detroit,
to this house,

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for an unfinished conversation.

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Don’t you want to film me
opening the door?

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Hello, Quyen, how are you?
Come on in.

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She’s not my grandmother.
We’re not even related.

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Do you drink beer?

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No, but you should have some.

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I’ll have a beer with you
if you want to have...

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You don’t have to. But...
but do you drink wine?

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You drink beer and wine?

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I drink everything.

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You drink everything.
Okay... uh, vodka?

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So what do you want me to do?
Just like cut, trim the...

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Just... I mean, just take
off some of this

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so it doesn’t look so bad.

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Okay.

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You know it’s very funny
what happens

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to the hair of old people.

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You begin getting hair
in your nostrils.

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Oh yeah?
Did you know that?

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I’m just copying what
they do in the salon.

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You know how it\'s amazing
to me when I think

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of how, as you grow older,

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at least for me, just exactly
what I look like

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doesn’t matter that
much to me anymore.

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I’ve been in these
same clothes for months.

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It’s just too much
trouble to change them.

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My conversations with Grace
began over a decade ago

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when I began filming her
for another documentary.

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- Zola! Is Bernadette up there?
- I’m home!

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Hi!

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Hi! I thought that was your car.

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- Yes it is.
- How are you?

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I’d heard about this
elderly Chinese woman

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who’d been a part of
Detroit’s African American

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community for 50 years.

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She seemed perfect
for my earlier film,

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- the “Grace Lee Project,”...
- Watch your step.

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Which was about the many
Asian American women

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who share our common name.

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I’m a terrible housekeeper.
Let me tell you that in advance.

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When you said one of the
reasons for your

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making this
Grace Lee documentary,

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I’m paraphrasing, was that
you wanted to refute the, um,

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stereotype of Asian American
women as passive.

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The whole thing assumed a,
a different meaning for me.

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I, I, I, I didn’t see myself
so much as Chinese,

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and you keep asking me this

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I didn’t think myself
so much as Chinese American,

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I didn’t think myself
so much as a woman

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because the Chinese American
movement hadn’t emerged,

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and the women’s movement
hadn’t emerged.

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Over the years, my conversations
with Grace have evolved.

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- Ah! So exciting! Guess what?
- What?

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When Grace was 85, we
could barely keep up with her.

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This is where they set up
tables to collect the petitions.

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She attended several
meetings a day,

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taught a class,
collected petitions,

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and constantly challenged
everyone in her path.

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I’m sorry. I think that if we
stick to those categories

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of race and class and gender,

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we are stuck.

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As we grew closer,

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I began to learn more
about Grace’s radical past.

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She’s been a
Marxist theoretician,

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a black power activist,

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and has a thick FBI file.

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Grace has made
more contributions

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to the black struggle than
most black people have.

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Thank you so much.

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I was underground for
almost 12 years,

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uh, in the United States,

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and Grace Lee Boggs’ books
were hugely influential.

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It turns out that Grace has been
trying to wage a revolution

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in the United States
for the past 70 years.

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But just in the time
that I’ve known her,

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her ideas about revolution
have started to catch fire.

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What do you think of being
on a t-shirt, Grace?

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I never thought of myself
as a t-shirt character.

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Grace Lee Boggs, how would you

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describe where we stand now
and how we’ve gotten here?

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Well, I think we are in a time
of great hope and great danger.

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I didn’t know I was searching
for someone like Grace

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until I met her.

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I don’t know why people are
so interested now.

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I’m not sure why I am who I am.

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I think it does have something
to do with the fact

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that I was born
female and born Chinese.

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I’m not sure what that is, but
I have to think that through.

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And I thought that maybe
in our discussions

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we would be able
to explore that.

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Yeah.

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Can we go back a little bit?

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And how did you
become a philosopher?

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I’ll just go back, um, 70 years.

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I went to college at
Barnard at the age of 16.

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College in those days was still

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very much
an upper-class culture.

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I didn’t want to be different,

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so I ran for office,

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I was vice president of the
Women’s Athletic Association.

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And suddenly it all
seemed barren to me.

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Something seemed wrong.

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Fellow workers, we want
peace and prosperity

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in this country here,
that’s what we’re fighting for.

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Union Square was full of people
because of the Depression.

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And even though I was not
an activist growing up at all,

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I think the seeds were laid,
you know, in... in my family.

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Last night I received an
email from my great niece.

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And she sent me a picture that
she found on the floor of

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her basement of my father’s
restaurant on Broadway.

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Chin Lee’s Restaurant
opened in 1924.

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My parents came
here as immigrants.

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My mother never went to
school, couldn’t read or write.

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We lived a very
comfortable existence.

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And at the same time,
I felt from the very beginning

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that there were changes
that needed to take place.

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So I dropped all my classes and
decided to take philosophy.

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There was a class on Hegel,

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and that really changed
my whole way of thinking.

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Hegel was a German philosopher

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who came of age
during the French Revolution

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and saw its violent aftermath.

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Hegel said that every idea
contains its opposite

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and only by struggling
through those contradictions

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can you get closer to the truth.

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That’s dialectical thinking.

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It means don’t get
stuck in old ideas.

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Keep, keep recognizing
that reality is changing

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and that your ideas
have to change.

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I read Hegel’s writings as if
I were listening to music.

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And I didn’t understand
it at the time,

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but it had stayed with me,

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and I have a proper respect for
what reflection really entails.

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You said that revolution is
a transformation of ourselves,

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and I really, really agree
with that, and I wonder,

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in your life, how did you
go through that

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in order to become the person
that you are today?

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Let me tell you how
I became an activist.

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Uh, I was a, uh, I got my Ph.D.
in 1940. Just imagine that.

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And then I went
out into the world,

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and I found that even
department stores would say,

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“We don’t hire Orientals.”

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So I got on a train
and went to Chicago.

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Found a job there in the
philosophy library

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for $10 a week.

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It wasn’t very much to live on,

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so I found a woman who said

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I could stay in her
basement rent-free.

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The only trouble was that
I had to face a barricade

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of rats in order to get
into the basement.

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So one day I came across
a meeting of people

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protesting rat-infested housing.

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That brought me in contact
with the black community

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for the first time.

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And I want you to
think about this now.

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I had never been in contact
with black people before.

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In 1941, the Depression had
ended for white workers

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but not for black workers.

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I was aware that
people were suffering,

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but it was more
a statistical thing.

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And here in Chicago
I was coming into contact

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with it as a human thing.

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Being in contact with
the black community

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brought me in contact with

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the 1941 March on
Washington movement

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to demand jobs for
blacks in defense plants.

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Tens of thousands of blacks were
ready to march on Washington.

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And Roosevelt couldn’t
afford that to happen,

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so he issued
Executive Order 8802,

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banning discrimination
in defense plants.

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I found out that if you
mobilize a mass action,

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you can change the world.

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And I thought to myself, boy,
if a movement can achieve that,

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that’s what I want
to do with my life.

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In Chicago I realized that I’d
have to do more thinking.

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I went down one day to meet this

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West Indian Marxist,
C.L.R. James.

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An extraordinarily
handsome black man.

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And he’s carrying two books:

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Marx’s “Capital” and
Hegel’s “Science of Logic.”

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For the next decade Grace worked
closely with C.L.R. James,

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translating and embracing
Marx’s ideas.

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This room was formerly
the master bedroom.

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I was a very faithful student of
Marx and Engels in the 1940s.

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I read very carefully almost
everything that Marx wrote,

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and studied it,
and believed in it.

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The top shelf...

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This is the period of Grace’s
life that’s the hardest for

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someone in my generation
to understand.

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There you go.

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Oh, there you are. Hi!

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I go back and forth
with her on Skype,

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trying to understand
what she’s talking about.

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The whole question of
what is dialectical humanism

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as contrasted with
dialectal materialism,

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which is more in terms of...

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Marx was a Hegelian

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who projected socialism
as workers’ power

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whereby the workers
would take over the state.

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Part of Marx’s theory was that

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if you could just get the
masses angry enough,

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they would sweep
away the existing society

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and emerge as a new society.

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Grace joined C.L.R. James
in an offshoot

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of the Socialist Workers Party.

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They took on the
party leadership,

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saying they had ignored
racism and the potential for

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black workers to
ignite a revolution.

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Most people know me
first through this pamphlet.

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And my name... I, I had a...
a party name, Ria Stone.

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What do you mean
by a party name?

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Oh, in those days, if you were
in a left-wing organization,

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you gave yourself a...
A party name. An
underground name.

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Seventeen U.S. Communist
leaders are arrested.

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Four more red leaders
are still being sought.

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The group is charged with
criminal conspiracy to
teach and advocate

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the overthrow of
U.S. Government.

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The generation of radicals
who were left-wingers

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had been silenced
by McCarthyism.

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There was always
an atmosphere of fear.

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And we didn’t begin to free
ourselves from that underground
mentality until the mid-‘50s

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and when we decided that
we were makers of the
American Revolution,

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and that we were Americans.

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In America, millions of
people drive automobiles.

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Most of the cars are
built right here in Detroit.

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The auto industry
built Detroit, made
it what it is today.

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Politics of the time
said Detroit is where
the workers are,

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and that’s where you need to be.

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There were two million people
in the city around that time.

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There was such a
sense of vitality about it.

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I came to Detroit to help edit
the newsletter we were putting
out, “Correspondence,”

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which would be edited not
only by workers but by women,
by young people, and by blacks.

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Born in Alabama /
Bred in Illinois

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He was nothing /
but a plain black boy

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Do you remember that?

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And that’s when I met Jimmy.

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Jimmy Boggs volunteered
to be the reporter.

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And Jimmy was
obviously very different.

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And I had never met
anybody like him before.

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He was militant.
He was articulate,

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so one night I
invited him to dinner.

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He reluctantly
agreed and came late.

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And I played an album,
a Louis Armstrong
album that I had.

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The stars are bright...

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He said he had no
use for Louis Armstrong,

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and that Louis Armstrong was
what they called an Uncle Tom

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because he was
always, “Yowza Yowza.”

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And so he was, you know, he
was very unpleasant actually.

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But in the course of the
evening, he asked
me to marry him.

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I said yes.

00:17:52.990 --> 00:17:58.120
Friends of his said I had no
idea what it was like to be
married to a black man.

00:17:58.953 --> 00:18:00.330
And I didn’t.

00:18:01.290 --> 00:18:04.416
When Jimmy and I
went on our honeymoon,

00:18:04.418 --> 00:18:07.003
we had to sleep in
the car coming back

00:18:07.005 --> 00:18:08.921
because we couldn’t
go into a motel.

00:18:10.506 --> 00:18:13.093
Did you ever want
to have children?

00:18:13.135 --> 00:18:14.511
No, I never did.

00:18:15.886 --> 00:18:19.558
I have a very wonderful,
philosophic view of children.

00:18:19.725 --> 00:18:22.476
I don’t know how I
would do practically.

00:18:23.270 --> 00:18:25.521
Why do you think he
asked you to marry him?

00:18:25.523 --> 00:18:27.773
You must have asked him later.

00:18:28.150 --> 00:18:30.443
No, we never discussed it.

00:18:31.820 --> 00:18:35.781
I, I know that sounds
funny, but we never did.

00:18:36.991 --> 00:18:41.788
Jimmy and I really
never discussed personal
things too much.

00:18:45.500 --> 00:18:48.336
With Ossie and Ruby.

00:18:48.338 --> 00:18:52.215
Starring Ruby Dee
and Ossie Davis.

00:18:53.008 --> 00:18:56.761
With their very special guests,
Grace and James Boggs.

00:18:57.595 --> 00:19:02.308
If you’re lucky, Ossie, you
know, you meet somebody
every now and then

00:19:02.310 --> 00:19:04.853
that you wish everybody
in the world could know.
You know?

00:19:05.020 --> 00:19:07.981
Yeah.
Like Grace and James Boggs.
Oh, how true.

00:19:08.065 --> 00:19:11.901
Nobody in the whole wide
world has... is more dedicated

00:19:11.903 --> 00:19:14.320
to the promise and
the challenge of America.

00:19:14.780 --> 00:19:20.076
If you want to talk
about diversity... Jimmy
was born in the country.

00:19:20.078 --> 00:19:22.786
You know, you’ll never
get the country out of him.

00:19:23.455 --> 00:19:26.458
And there was something
in me was just a rebel now.

00:19:27.125 --> 00:19:32.380
Jimmy never lost
his Alabama accent.
His accent was so thick

00:19:32.381 --> 00:19:35.716
it was a little difficult
to capture what he said.

00:19:46.770 --> 00:19:50.315
They would whoop your
butt from here to here.

00:20:06.080 --> 00:20:14.080
He was born in Alabama /
He was bred in Illinois /

00:20:15.175 --> 00:20:17.675
He was nothing but
a plain black boy...

00:20:18.093 --> 00:20:21.971
Plain black boy.

00:20:22.805 --> 00:20:25.766
Swing low... swing low...

00:20:26.058 --> 00:20:29.520
This was one of the
really great migrations
of this country...

00:20:29.561 --> 00:20:35.943
of black people coming up
from Mississippi and Alabama
to Chicago and Detroit.

00:20:39.615 --> 00:20:46.161
Drive him past the pool hall /
Drive him past the show...

00:20:46.163 --> 00:20:50.000
Whole communities
in the south came north,

00:20:50.001 --> 00:20:54.963
so that many of Jimmy’s friends
were his childhood friends.

00:20:55.713 --> 00:20:59.300
They treated me like
a member of the family.

00:21:00.468 --> 00:21:02.053
But what did your family think?

00:21:03.721 --> 00:21:07.976
My brothers lived here.
They had a lot of black friends.

00:21:08.018 --> 00:21:11.103
It was not such a strange thing.

00:21:11.438 --> 00:21:13.481
Swing low...
swing low...

00:21:14.650 --> 00:21:19.070
Jimmy came to Detroit to
work on the line at Chrysler.

00:21:20.030 --> 00:21:25.618
Nothing but a plain black boy...

00:21:27.870 --> 00:21:33.335
He came home from work,
laid down on the floor with
a yellow pad and wrote.

00:21:34.460 --> 00:21:38.381
Jimmy was a much
faster writer than I.

00:21:38.383 --> 00:21:43.136
It was just amazing the
way that his, his pen
would sort of fly from the

00:21:43.303 --> 00:21:45.680
left-hand side to
the right-hand side.

00:21:50.268 --> 00:21:54.021
In 1963 James Boggs wrote
“The American Revolution,”

00:21:54.023 --> 00:21:58.443
where he foreshadowed the
changes that would undermine
the American working class.

00:22:01.236 --> 00:22:06.910
He watched the working
class expand like crazy
during World War II

00:22:06.911 --> 00:22:13.291
and then steadily shrink with
the introduction of what
they called automation.

00:22:15.543 --> 00:22:19.338
And he watched human beings
disappearing from the line

00:22:19.340 --> 00:22:22.425
and being replaced by robots.

00:22:41.026 --> 00:22:48.160
What would human beings do
when they were not needed for
work and for labor to produce?

00:22:49.535 --> 00:22:52.746
And that’s a hell of a question
to, to put on... you know,

00:22:52.913 --> 00:22:55.583
on the shoulders of
young people like yourself.

00:22:55.585 --> 00:23:02.256
But you know, you don’t
choose the times you live
in. But you do choose

00:23:02.258 --> 00:23:06.051
who you want to be, and you
do choose how you want to think.

00:23:19.023 --> 00:23:23.195
This is where we put out
our newsletter “Correspondence.”

00:23:26.196 --> 00:23:31.745
The devastation is so
fabulous, so incredible.

00:23:33.455 --> 00:23:37.291
People gone...
neighborhood gone.

00:23:48.761 --> 00:23:52.181
Jimmy would write
most of the leaflets,

00:23:52.183 --> 00:23:54.141
and I would just sit and listen.

00:23:54.893 --> 00:23:59.188
I was a Chinese American
living in an African
American community

00:23:59.190 --> 00:24:05.528
and saw myself as a part of
and apart from the community.

00:24:12.035 --> 00:24:15.496
This was the period that
the black movement
was just beginning.

00:24:15.498 --> 00:24:18.916
1955 was the Montgomery
bus boycott.

00:24:19.250 --> 00:24:23.213
We, the Negro citizens
of Montgomery, Alabama,

00:24:23.215 --> 00:24:26.508
will continue to carry
on our mass protest.

00:24:28.926 --> 00:24:33.723
The Montgomery bus
boycott was about not only
transforming the system

00:24:33.725 --> 00:24:36.433
but an example of how

00:24:36.475 --> 00:24:40.521
we ourselves change in the
process of changing the system.

00:24:43.275 --> 00:24:44.985
In the early 1960s,

00:24:44.986 --> 00:24:47.445
Grace split with the
Marxist establishment

00:24:47.446 --> 00:24:50.698
to focus on a distinctly
American revolution she saw

00:24:50.865 --> 00:24:52.825
emerging from
the black community.

00:24:53.868 --> 00:24:56.830
She began speaking publicly
about the black revolution.

00:24:57.871 --> 00:25:00.666
The Negro revolt is here.

00:25:00.668 --> 00:25:03.878
I believe that the Negro revolt
represents the beginning

00:25:03.880 --> 00:25:06.046
of a new revolutionary epoch.

00:25:07.631 --> 00:25:13.136
I made a speech at the Center
for the Study of Democratic
Institutions in Santa Barbara.

00:25:14.096 --> 00:25:18.768
I tried to help these
male intellectuals, these
liberal intellectuals

00:25:18.770 --> 00:25:23.063
understand that the black
movement was about
something deeper than rights.

00:25:23.815 --> 00:25:26.400
One could say for
the American Negro

00:25:26.401 --> 00:25:30.821
to achieve the middle-class
white American standards

00:25:30.823 --> 00:25:32.156
is a revolution.

00:25:33.115 --> 00:25:41.115
I don’t think whites understand
the degree to which Negroes
do not want their whiteness.

00:25:43.376 --> 00:25:47.921
I am trying to suggest
that the Negro is striving
to become equal

00:25:47.923 --> 00:25:52.968
to a particular image of
himself that he has achieved.

00:25:52.970 --> 00:25:56.765
That he is not trying to
become equal to whites.

00:25:58.056 --> 00:26:02.061
It was a great philosophic
transition for me,

00:26:02.228 --> 00:26:06.065
which I had begun when
I began examining

00:26:06.231 --> 00:26:10.070
the difference between Martin
Luther King and Malcolm.

00:26:13.531 --> 00:26:15.283
The goal of Dr.
Martin Luther King

00:26:15.285 --> 00:26:20.455
is to get Negroes to forgive
the people who have brutalized
them for, uh, for 400 years by,

00:26:20.456 --> 00:26:24.166
by lulling them to sleep and
making them forgetting what
those whites have done to them.

00:26:24.708 --> 00:26:27.295
There’s a great deal of
difference between

00:26:27.461 --> 00:26:30.465
non-resistance to evil
and non-violent resistance.

00:26:32.466 --> 00:26:35.803
My relationship to King
has changed over the years.

00:26:35.805 --> 00:26:43.436
I was one of the organizers
of the 1963 march down
Woodward Avenue in Detroit.

00:26:45.730 --> 00:26:48.525
I have a dream this afternoon

00:26:49.150 --> 00:26:51.193
that one day right
here in Detroit,

00:26:51.903 --> 00:26:58.910
Negroes will be able to
buy a house anywhere that
their money will carry them.

00:27:00.411 --> 00:27:02.371
But I didn’t think much of him.

00:27:02.373 --> 00:27:06.625
I really thought he was naive.
I really did because I,
I was a Malcolm person.

00:27:08.961 --> 00:27:10.963
I would go and
hear Malcolm speak.

00:27:11.673 --> 00:27:13.841
Why, you are the one
that made it hard for yourself!

00:27:13.843 --> 00:27:17.345
The white man believes
you when you go to
him with that old sweet talk

00:27:17.636 --> 00:27:20.598
‘cause you’ve been
sweet talkin’ him ever
since he brought you here.

00:27:22.516 --> 00:27:28.063
And audiences would squirm
as he would challenge them
to think differently,

00:27:28.230 --> 00:27:29.898
to transform themselves.

00:27:34.028 --> 00:27:37.990
When we think of the civil
rights era, we think
of the famous people.

00:27:37.991 --> 00:27:41.535
But, as Grace says, not all
ideas come from the top down.

00:27:43.455 --> 00:27:47.333
They can also percolate up
from the bottom, from
conversations in people’s

00:27:47.541 --> 00:27:49.793
living rooms and around
their kitchen tables.

00:27:51.670 --> 00:27:56.216
As I comb through old
footage, the only evidence
I found of Grace was this:

00:27:56.218 --> 00:27:59.720
at the march she helped
organize for Martin Luther King.

00:28:00.680 --> 00:28:02.431
And there’s no footage
of Jimmy at all.

00:28:03.641 --> 00:28:09.688
He felt that, uh, it was
much more important
to keep a low profile.

00:28:09.690 --> 00:28:14.401
And to be doing the kind of
thinking and organizing
that was necessary.

00:28:14.860 --> 00:28:21.450
This room is essentially the
same way that it’s been ever
since we’ve moved here

00:28:21.616 --> 00:28:23.201
for nearly 40 years.

00:28:24.161 --> 00:28:28.373
Practically everybody
who’s been active in
the city at one time

00:28:28.541 --> 00:28:31.585
or other says that they’ve
been in this house
discussing strategy.

00:28:38.008 --> 00:28:40.678
We see the events
of 1963 through

00:28:40.845 --> 00:28:43.055
the eyes of the mass media.

00:28:43.515 --> 00:28:46.350
Thank God almighty
we are free at last!

00:28:46.683 --> 00:28:51.646
We see events like that and are
not aware of the struggles that
were taking place and

00:28:51.815 --> 00:28:53.190
forcing new developments.

00:28:54.566 --> 00:29:00.071
Martin Luther King was being
persecuted by the FBI
during that period

00:29:00.240 --> 00:29:01.866
as being pro-Communist.

00:29:02.950 --> 00:29:08.956
Many people in the black
movement were afraid that
if they didn’t purge themselves

00:29:09.123 --> 00:29:13.376
of left-wing elements, that the
movement would be destroyed.

00:29:15.338 --> 00:29:18.131
A few months after the
march she had helped organize,

00:29:18.133 --> 00:29:22.636
Grace and others were excluded
from a civil rights conference
to be held in Detroit.

00:29:23.428 --> 00:29:25.890
So we organized our own
conference and called it the

00:29:26.056 --> 00:29:27.558
Grassroots Leadership
Conference.

00:29:28.935 --> 00:29:32.438
Jimmy was chair of the
conference. I was the secretary.

00:29:33.271 --> 00:29:37.443
This is a picture of Jimmy
talking to one of the workshops
at the conference.

00:29:37.693 --> 00:29:40.738
This is me.

00:29:42.781 --> 00:29:44.533
Brother Jim Boggs
now has the floor.

00:29:57.088 --> 00:30:02.218
This is part of James Boggs’
FBI file. It was very
exciting to get the file

00:30:02.220 --> 00:30:06.430
as a historian and as a
political person who’s
interested in their work.

00:30:06.431 --> 00:30:10.351
I, I knew that... I hoped that
this would have some new
information which it did.

00:30:11.351 --> 00:30:12.561
Is this all of it?

00:30:12.563 --> 00:30:13.605
This is about a third of it.

00:30:13.606 --> 00:30:14.938
A third? Okay.

00:30:24.698 --> 00:30:28.870
So in the Grassroots Leadership
speech, it sounds like
James is calling for violence.

00:30:28.871 --> 00:30:32.165
You know, when I ask Grace
about it, she never gives
me a straight answer,

00:30:32.331 --> 00:30:33.331
and I don’t know why.

00:30:33.415 --> 00:30:35.793
A straight answer about
how she felt about it?
Yeah.

00:30:39.671 --> 00:30:47.671
I think they felt that violence
was already happening and
that violence was inevitable.

00:30:59.150 --> 00:31:02.195
In fact, it was at the
Grassroots Leadership
Conference where Malcolm X

00:31:02.361 --> 00:31:05.365
delivered one of his
most famous speeches:
Message to the Grassroots.

00:31:06.740 --> 00:31:08.033
Can we play the record?

00:31:08.035 --> 00:31:10.953
Would you like to play it?
Yes.

00:31:14.831 --> 00:31:20.671
We want to have just
an off-the-cuff chat
between you and me.

00:31:20.673 --> 00:31:22.965
Us.

00:31:22.966 --> 00:31:28.680
Concerning the difference
between the black revolution

00:31:28.681 --> 00:31:32.183
and the Negro revolution.

00:31:34.101 --> 00:31:38.146
Revolution is in Africa!
Revolution is in Asia!

00:31:38.148 --> 00:31:40.900
Rearing its head
in Latin America.

00:31:41.566 --> 00:31:46.655
The only kind of revolution
that’s non-violent is
the Negro revolution.

00:31:47.281 --> 00:31:50.601
For Jimmy and Grace, they had
been thinking about revolution
for a decade and a half,

00:31:50.701 --> 00:31:56.456
so now they’re seeing in this
particular radical and militant
stream of black protest

00:31:56.458 --> 00:32:01.670
a new way to think about
and envision and enact
an American revolution.

00:32:02.921 --> 00:32:06.800
Inspired by the Grassroots
Leadership conference, Grace
helped launch a new,

00:32:06.968 --> 00:32:08.218
all-black political party.

00:32:09.303 --> 00:32:13.056
So when Grace helps to build the
Freedom Now party, she’s the
only non-black person in this

00:32:13.223 --> 00:32:15.183
self-consciously all-black
political organization,

00:32:15.768 --> 00:32:17.936
whose goal is not
to achieve integration

00:32:18.103 --> 00:32:21.983
but to try to realize some
power, political power,
for African Americans.

00:32:24.401 --> 00:32:27.905
Years before it became
a movement, Jimmy
began writing about the

00:32:28.071 --> 00:32:29.406
importance of Black Power.

00:32:31.366 --> 00:32:37.498
The word “power” strikes
white people as something
dangerous, threatening.

00:32:38.833 --> 00:32:44.046
And we were only talking
about blacks being in office.

00:32:45.005 --> 00:32:48.508
Back in 1963, Grace was
still speaking as an outsider.

00:32:48.885 --> 00:32:52.221
I want to make very clear that
I, I do not claim in any sense
of the word to be a Negro.

00:32:52.223 --> 00:32:55.641
I have not lived all my
life as a Negro, and I don’t
think anyone who hasn’t

00:32:55.808 --> 00:32:57.101
really can speak for the Negro.

00:32:58.060 --> 00:33:01.813
But once she becomes a
Black Power activist, she
starts using the word “we.”

00:33:02.648 --> 00:33:07.278
In the black movement, when
we were demanding first-class
citizenship, we were saying

00:33:07.445 --> 00:33:09.155
we were being,
being denied that.

00:33:09.821 --> 00:33:12.991
We were very ethical but
we wanted more than that.

00:33:12.993 --> 00:33:17.871
We wanted to become part
of the people who took
responsibility for the country.

00:33:18.915 --> 00:33:22.835
So by 1966, ‘67, she’s
well known particularly
in Detroit circles

00:33:22.836 --> 00:33:26.213
but also nationally as
a Black Power figure.

00:33:26.671 --> 00:33:29.341
And I became so active
in the Black Power movement

00:33:29.343 --> 00:33:33.930
that FBI records of that
time say that I was
probably Afro-Chinese.

00:33:37.433 --> 00:33:40.686
Nobody ever really
thought... I don\'t know
how to say this, but

00:33:40.688 --> 00:33:47.276
folks didn’t really think about
Grace as a Chinese American.
She was Grace, you know.

00:33:47.443 --> 00:33:49.111
She was just one of us.

00:33:49.113 --> 00:33:52.865
As young revolutionaries
would talk about certain
things and... we might

00:33:52.866 --> 00:33:56.743
say, “Okay... well, you know,
let’s go see what, uh, Jimmy
and Grace have to

00:33:56.910 --> 00:33:57.910
say about that.”

00:33:59.080 --> 00:34:03.250
Their jointly-authored essay,
“The City Is the Black Man’s
Land,” written in 1965,

00:34:03.251 --> 00:34:07.421
calls for black people to
recognize the demographic
changes taking place in

00:34:07.588 --> 00:34:08.588
American cities.

00:34:15.930 --> 00:34:23.930
The freeways had been
built in 1953, so by 1967
a lot of people had left.

00:34:32.863 --> 00:34:39.286
We were a predominantly
black city, which was not
run by black people.

00:34:40.455 --> 00:34:46.626
And great numbers of people
who were being harassed by
the police began to look

00:34:46.793 --> 00:34:50.046
upon the police as a
white occupation army.

00:34:53.758 --> 00:34:58.221
At 13, I had been stopped by
the Detroit police along with my

00:34:58.388 --> 00:35:01.100
uncle just for walking
down the street.

00:35:02.560 --> 00:35:04.436
With the emergence
of Black Power,

00:35:04.438 --> 00:35:11.901
they became more aggressive
and that aggressiveness was
what led us to 1967.

00:35:15.865 --> 00:35:20.578
In July of 1967, Detroit
police raided a black nightclub

00:35:20.580 --> 00:35:24.540
and sparked one of the
most violent urban
uprisings in American history.

00:35:34.300 --> 00:35:36.510
Go back to your homes to
protect your own property.

00:35:36.676 --> 00:35:39.346
It’s the best thing
that you can do.
Protect your own property.

00:35:41.390 --> 00:35:44.018
After five days, 43
people were dead.

00:35:47.521 --> 00:35:50.941
It was a turning point
for Detroit, and Grace
has struggled to

00:35:51.108 --> 00:35:53.193
understand its
significance ever since.

00:35:54.528 --> 00:36:02.286
Well, let me take you back to
that terrible summer of 1967
when Detroit erupted into,

00:36:02.453 --> 00:36:05.163
into that awful riot out there.

00:36:05.165 --> 00:36:09.668
I ask you to think about
your calling it a riot.

00:36:09.670 --> 00:36:10.670
What would you call it?

00:36:10.671 --> 00:36:13.671
Ah... we in Detroit
called it the rebellion.

00:36:13.838 --> 00:36:14.506
The rebellion.

00:36:14.673 --> 00:36:17.718
It was a rising up,
it was a standing up.

00:36:17.885 --> 00:36:21.388
It was the protest by a
people against injustice.

00:36:22.013 --> 00:36:24.266
So now we taking
no more from nobody.

00:36:24.268 --> 00:36:26.388
We been... they been taking
everything we have and now

00:36:26.435 --> 00:36:28.315
we showing them we ain’t
afraid of them no more.

00:36:31.565 --> 00:36:36.445
This represents a
racial rebellion that
goes from coast to coast.

00:36:36.446 --> 00:36:39.656
In the city Detroit, it
represents one simple thing:

00:36:39.823 --> 00:36:42.618
Black people want control
of black communities.

00:36:42.993 --> 00:36:46.496
You open it!

00:37:07.351 --> 00:37:12.856
I’ve just gone through civil
guerrilla warfare in Detroit.

00:37:13.440 --> 00:37:20.781
Certainly one of the influences
was those Americans who are
preaching revolution in America,

00:37:20.783 --> 00:37:24.618
and I say we ought to deal
with such people on the
basis of laws of treason.

00:37:31.875 --> 00:37:35.755
It was a turning point
in my life and it forced
us to begin thinking,

00:37:35.921 --> 00:37:37.548
“What does a revolution mean?”

00:37:40.635 --> 00:37:44.555
Grace watched how the
violence of the rebellions
galvanized the community,

00:37:44.556 --> 00:37:49.143
but she also saw the
contradictions of where
that violence would lead.

00:37:50.435 --> 00:37:53.271
For a few days there
was a lot of brotherhood,

00:37:53.273 --> 00:37:57.191
but after that we all got
more scared of each other.

00:38:00.278 --> 00:38:07.328
As a result of the rebellions,
looting and crime began to
seem normal and natural.

00:38:12.290 --> 00:38:20.290
I was among the six people who
were allegedly responsible for
the explosion in 1967.

00:38:29.016 --> 00:38:32.520
We actually were not in town.
We were not responsible

00:38:32.521 --> 00:38:39.110
but, uh, we had done a lot of
the agitation in relation to the
propaganda, the activities.

00:38:40.526 --> 00:38:46.533
And I did feel that if it hadn\'t
been for the active organizing,
the theorizing that we did,

00:38:46.700 --> 00:38:49.870
that it would not have
taken the shape that it did.

00:39:46.051 --> 00:39:50.555
In 2008, Grace invited
me to a tiny island off
the coast of Maine.

00:39:54.518 --> 00:40:00.690
So if you will be on that
side of me as we go across...
I\'ll feel more comfortable.

00:40:01.983 --> 00:40:07.113
She and Jimmy began
coming here every year after
the turbulent summer of 1967.

00:40:07.321 --> 00:40:09.908
It gets more rickety by the day!

00:40:12.326 --> 00:40:16.665
I hoped that coming here
would help me understand
how she went from being this

00:40:16.831 --> 00:40:18.958
‘60s militant to the
woman I know today.

00:40:23.713 --> 00:40:30.345
As we sat here, against
the background of
the ocean, of the trees,

00:40:31.096 --> 00:40:36.435
we just began talking.
And we started these
conversations which are

00:40:36.601 --> 00:40:39.813
now published as
“Conversations in Maine.”

00:40:45.235 --> 00:40:47.863
Every summer Grace
and Jimmy would
join their old friends,

00:40:48.030 --> 00:40:51.366
Lyman and Freddy Paine,
in Lyman’s family home.

00:40:59.625 --> 00:41:03.128
Over the years, we had
these long conversations.

00:41:27.360 --> 00:41:34.201
Talking together, we were
able to create a kind of
consciousness among ourselves.

00:41:35.785 --> 00:41:43.785
And I think we realized
a rebellion is an
outburst of anger,

00:41:43.878 --> 00:41:46.713
but it\'s not revolution.

00:41:47.171 --> 00:41:51.635
Revolution is evolution toward
something much grander

00:41:51.636 --> 00:41:55.513
in terms of what it means
to be a human being.

00:41:57.223 --> 00:42:00.268
You can have discussion,
you can have a meal,
you can plot whatever.

00:42:00.270 --> 00:42:05.065
We plotted picket lines.
We plotted anything we,
we wished to do.

00:42:06.233 --> 00:42:10.278
At the end, it was always,
“Okay, let’s put on some
music and let’s relax.”

00:42:10.280 --> 00:42:13.781
And music, relaxing, and
dancing... part of the thing.

00:42:15.866 --> 00:42:19.371
So, then...
Traditions!
Welcome to the house!

00:42:20.746 --> 00:42:23.666
Shea?
Delicious!

00:42:24.251 --> 00:42:30.548
I started going in ‘78 and
then went back every year,
uh, with Grace and Jim.

00:42:33.093 --> 00:42:35.803
It was my first exposure
to talking about

00:42:35.971 --> 00:42:38.765
\"What\'s this all mean?
Where are we headed?\"

00:42:39.433 --> 00:42:41.518
Ideas matter.

00:42:41.685 --> 00:42:45.480
And when you take
a position, you

00:42:45.646 --> 00:42:49.108
should try and examine
what its implications are.

00:42:49.735 --> 00:42:53.196
It is not enough to say,
“This is what I think,
this is what I feel,”

00:42:53.198 --> 00:42:54.781
and leave it at that.

00:42:55.865 --> 00:42:57.450
I can remember, for example...

00:42:57.993 --> 00:43:01.121
Do you mind if I just change,
change my tape for a moment?

00:43:03.790 --> 00:43:06.501
Grace has stacks of
these old recordings.

00:43:06.503 --> 00:43:09.755
Physical proof of
how much she
values conversation.

00:43:13.175 --> 00:43:17.971
We’re the only living things
that have conversations,
as far as we know.

00:43:18.596 --> 00:43:19.931
When you have a conversation,

00:43:20.640 --> 00:43:24.060
you never know what’s
going to come out of
your mouth or out of

00:43:24.226 --> 00:43:25.353
somebody else’s mouth.

00:43:25.561 --> 00:43:27.355
Bullshit, Grace! Come on!

00:43:27.356 --> 00:43:31.276
Freddy, I’m sorry.
I don’t think this is bullshit.
I really don’t.

00:43:31.278 --> 00:43:32.820
Okay, I’m sorry.

00:43:32.821 --> 00:43:33.861
It all goes back to Hegel.

00:43:34.530 --> 00:43:39.116
For Grace, conversation is
where you try to honestly
confront the limits

00:43:39.118 --> 00:43:42.120
of your own ideas in
order to come to a
new understanding.

00:43:42.495 --> 00:43:44.665
Talk is cheap, but they talk
about their feelings

00:43:44.666 --> 00:43:46.375
about what was important
about their feelings

00:43:46.376 --> 00:43:48.543
and then turn around
and say that to the mother!

00:43:48.545 --> 00:43:52.463
Look... look, Nancy,
I really, really,
really get... I, I’m sorry.

00:43:52.465 --> 00:43:56.051
When you just say
talk is cheap like that...
I, I can’t, I can’t...

00:43:56.053 --> 00:43:58.345
I find it very, very
difficult to take.

00:43:58.511 --> 00:44:01.056
I want to tell you honestly.
Their talk was NOT cheap.

00:44:01.223 --> 00:44:04.058
You’re making an in......
You’re saying that this
is important and this is...

00:44:04.060 --> 00:44:06.061
You’re saying things
like “Talk is cheap”!

00:44:06.063 --> 00:44:08.605
No, you’re say...
You’re not listening to me.

00:44:08.606 --> 00:44:11.441
You’re saying that we can
talk about what’s important
in a revolutionary movement

00:44:11.443 --> 00:44:13.568
but we don’t have
to act like it.

00:44:13.693 --> 00:44:14.570
Grace was hard on people.

00:44:14.571 --> 00:44:15.731
There\'s no question about it.

00:44:15.778 --> 00:44:18.156
Grace, I, I think what
Nancy’s raising is...

00:44:18.948 --> 00:44:21.188
You know, I sometimes
think she didn’t
mean it personally.

00:44:21.618 --> 00:44:25.705
But she would be so intent
on whatever her idea was

00:44:26.248 --> 00:44:29.460
and be so sure

00:44:29.461 --> 00:44:34.756
that she needed to push
you in that and if you
resisted, she’d get mad.

00:44:34.758 --> 00:44:36.918
I think it’s insensitive.
I think it’s hypocritical.

00:44:37.801 --> 00:44:38.926
Well, I... I’m sorry.
This, this, you know...

00:44:38.928 --> 00:44:42.596
I feel the number of
adjectives that you are
using with regard to her

00:44:42.598 --> 00:44:45.308
are very excessive.
I really do.

00:44:45.891 --> 00:44:48.211
And I think you really
should look at it.
Well, I should.

00:44:49.855 --> 00:44:51.398
Did she make people cry?

00:44:51.400 --> 00:44:53.691
Oh God yeah, she made
all kinds of people cry.

00:44:54.316 --> 00:44:57.236
Myself included. But all
kinds of people. Yeah.

00:44:57.570 --> 00:44:59.740
I could probably give
you a rather long list.

00:45:05.661 --> 00:45:09.791
Freddy in the afternoon
would make cranberry sauce,

00:45:09.793 --> 00:45:11.835
and I would read to her.

00:45:12.961 --> 00:45:16.340
“Jackson understood
that the psychic scars
carried by white workers

00:45:16.341 --> 00:45:19.426
were as damaging to our
national well-being as the

00:45:19.593 --> 00:45:23.013
scars carried by
African Americans.
The hidden scars...”

00:45:23.805 --> 00:45:29.268
There are times when
expanding our imaginations
is what is required.

00:45:34.106 --> 00:45:41.365
The radical movement
has overemphasized
the role of activism

00:45:42.783 --> 00:45:46.203
and underestimated
the role of reflection.

00:45:54.503 --> 00:45:57.130
Black worker power!

00:45:58.173 --> 00:46:01.426
I watch you go
to church on Sunday /

00:46:04.261 --> 00:46:06.598
Then you forget all
you learned on Monday...

00:46:09.308 --> 00:46:13.980
After 1967, there had
been major white flight
out of the city of Detroit.

00:46:16.816 --> 00:46:20.028
Some neighborhoods
literally turned from
white to black overnight.

00:46:45.761 --> 00:46:49.975
After the rebellion there was
a great sense of power

00:46:49.976 --> 00:46:53.645
and that sense that
the city belongs to us.

00:46:56.105 --> 00:46:58.608
What a lot of people
don’t realize is that

00:46:58.610 --> 00:47:00.526
the call of Black Power

00:47:01.278 --> 00:47:04.615
was to the country.
It wasn’t just to
African Americans.

00:47:04.616 --> 00:47:07.241
And Detroit was exciting because

00:47:07.243 --> 00:47:09.703
it was emerging Black Power.

00:47:10.745 --> 00:47:13.581
I came to Detroit in 1970.

00:47:13.583 --> 00:47:15.625
I got a job in the Ford plant.

00:47:16.418 --> 00:47:18.545
I was there to be
part of a revolution.

00:47:19.630 --> 00:47:21.881
I started coming by
Jimmy and Grace’s house

00:47:21.883 --> 00:47:23.966
to be part of
these study groups.

00:47:25.343 --> 00:47:28.971
It started off with discussions
around current events.

00:47:28.973 --> 00:47:32.183
If after about four to
six months, people thought

00:47:32.185 --> 00:47:34.101
that you were a serious person,

00:47:34.103 --> 00:47:38.065
you then got invited to
what was called a
revolutionary study group,

00:47:39.106 --> 00:47:43.153
and that was based around
“Revolution and Evolution
in the Twentieth Century.”

00:47:47.156 --> 00:47:51.786
During Grace’s lifetime hundreds
of revolutions have taken
place around the world.

00:47:53.205 --> 00:47:56.291
People thought of
revolutions chiefly in
terms of taking state power,

00:47:57.750 --> 00:48:03.215
but we’ve had revolutions and
we’ve seen how the states
which they have created

00:48:03.216 --> 00:48:07.468
have turned out to be
like replicas of the states
which they opposed.

00:48:08.261 --> 00:48:11.598
You have to bring
those two words together

00:48:12.723 --> 00:48:17.478
and recognize that we
are responsible for the
evolution of the human species.

00:48:18.021 --> 00:48:20.440
It’s a question of two-
sided transformation

00:48:20.441 --> 00:48:23.735
and not just the oppressed
versus the oppressor.

00:48:25.570 --> 00:48:30.408
We had to change ourselves
in order the change the world.

00:48:34.036 --> 00:48:36.080
How does that relate
specifically to you?

00:48:36.998 --> 00:48:39.375
Well, one of the things I
think I have to understand

00:48:39.376 --> 00:48:42.128
is I grew up in a
male-oriented movement.

00:48:42.670 --> 00:48:45.215
I subordinated myself
very consciously.

00:48:45.216 --> 00:48:49.260
Then what I was
noticing was that there
was a lot of women around,

00:48:49.261 --> 00:48:52.180
and I felt that if I didn’t
begin struggling with Jimmy,

00:48:52.346 --> 00:48:54.808
I would give them the
completely wrong impression.

00:48:56.601 --> 00:48:59.478
She and Jimmy would
fight like mad over stuff,

00:48:59.480 --> 00:49:05.318
but I also think it was a
strategy she was learning
and, and trying out.

00:49:05.776 --> 00:49:08.405
And even in the interplay
between them

00:49:08.406 --> 00:49:12.825
you saw a microcosm
of the struggle that people
were having otherwise.

00:49:14.828 --> 00:49:20.541
Here in Detroit, people
literally thought the
revolution was next week,

00:49:20.543 --> 00:49:23.211
week, that we would be
creating something
very, very new.

00:49:23.378 --> 00:49:24.420
And, and in fact we did.

00:49:26.631 --> 00:49:29.091
In the early 1970s, there
were a number of people

00:49:29.258 --> 00:49:31.595
who had formerly been
in the old left movements

00:49:31.596 --> 00:49:34.346
who were emerging
and running for office.

00:49:34.348 --> 00:49:38.893
Coleman Alexander
Young had helped to
organize Ford in the 1940s.

00:49:38.895 --> 00:49:42.855
In the 1950s he had been a
victim of the McCarthy era.

00:49:42.856 --> 00:49:45.566
He was about to go to prison.
You know, they were going to

00:49:45.733 --> 00:49:47.276
send him to prison
as a communist.

00:49:49.653 --> 00:49:55.451
In 1973, Coleman Young ran for
mayor against the former police
commissioner and won.

00:49:57.620 --> 00:50:01.875
The readiness of people to
accept a black mayor, I think,

00:50:01.876 --> 00:50:05.878
was tied very much to the
recognition that a white mayor

00:50:06.045 --> 00:50:09.548
would no longer be able
to maintain law and order.

00:50:09.550 --> 00:50:13.803
To all dope pushers.
To all rip-off artists.

00:50:14.261 --> 00:50:17.723
I don’t give a damn if
they’re black or white,

00:50:18.600 --> 00:50:21.645
if they wear Superfly suits

00:50:21.686 --> 00:50:24.815
or blue uniforms
with silver badges.

00:50:24.816 --> 00:50:26.400
Hit the road!

00:50:28.651 --> 00:50:31.780
I remember that sense
of incredible hope.

00:50:32.030 --> 00:50:35.241
You were standing up
against racism, you were
standing up for change.

00:50:35.243 --> 00:50:36.743
And he does bring change.

00:50:52.966 --> 00:50:55.970
We are 25 million strong.

00:50:55.971 --> 00:50:59.975
Cut us in or cut it out.
It is a new ball game!

00:51:02.310 --> 00:51:05.646
Don’t stop at the mayor’s
office. Go on higher.

00:51:07.440 --> 00:51:09.566
Our time has come!

00:51:09.568 --> 00:51:11.861
A new day has begun!

00:51:21.203 --> 00:51:23.831
My eyes have been
glued to the screen.

00:51:24.958 --> 00:51:28.043
The sheer size of that crowd.

00:51:29.086 --> 00:51:30.213
Do you wish you were there?

00:51:30.215 --> 00:51:31.296
No.

00:51:32.006 --> 00:51:35.093
First of all, I’d be thinking
about different things.

00:51:35.260 --> 00:51:38.680
When you get old...
I’d be thinking of
where the toilets are.

00:51:40.806 --> 00:51:44.768
From Pacifica, this
is “Democracy Now.”

00:51:44.770 --> 00:51:48.273
Grace Lee Boggs, did you watch
the inauguration in Detroit?

00:51:49.773 --> 00:51:51.901
I sure did. I certainly did.

00:51:52.568 --> 00:51:57.990
One of the difficulties when
you’re coming out of oppression
and out of a bitter past

00:51:58.533 --> 00:52:04.413
is that you get a concept
of the messiah and you expect
too much from your leaders.

00:52:05.123 --> 00:52:07.083
And I think we have
to get to that point that

00:52:07.085 --> 00:52:10.920
we are the leaders
we’ve been looking for.

00:52:15.091 --> 00:52:20.055
One learns very soon
that the changes we need
are not going to come

00:52:20.056 --> 00:52:23.516
from the top by electing
somebody else.

00:52:24.225 --> 00:52:26.853
Struggled and sacrificed
and worked till their
hands were raw,

00:52:27.020 --> 00:52:28.438
so that we might
live a better life.

00:52:28.521 --> 00:52:36.521
And I recognize that crime
is a problem. I lay it side by
side with unemployment...

00:52:37.155 --> 00:52:41.033
Well, I’m going to tell
you what it felt like when
Coleman Young won.

00:52:42.451 --> 00:52:47.873
Somebody comes in
and he says, “Free at
last! Free at last!

00:52:47.875 --> 00:52:49.708
White folks can kiss our ass.”

00:52:50.751 --> 00:52:52.545
I started to cry.

00:52:52.586 --> 00:52:59.385
I cried because I said
these folks really think
this means freedom.

00:53:00.928 --> 00:53:05.391
And that’s when I knew that
we were in for a rough ride.

00:53:05.933 --> 00:53:10.355
The unsold inventory has
been unusually large this
year because of continuing

00:53:10.521 --> 00:53:11.898
declines in new car sales.

00:53:11.900 --> 00:53:13.900
Toyota, Datsun, Honda...

00:53:13.901 --> 00:53:17.021
Toyota, Datsun, Honda...
They all started selling
vehicles in the United States.

00:53:17.695 --> 00:53:21.156
As auto companies began
moving factories overseas,

00:53:21.323 --> 00:53:23.826
unemployment in Detroit
steadily rose.

00:53:24.995 --> 00:53:28.290
People fled the city as
the crime rate exploded.

00:53:30.041 --> 00:53:34.086
I began to see that black
power could not solve

00:53:34.088 --> 00:53:35.921
the crisis that was developing.

00:53:37.340 --> 00:53:39.383
Desperate to keep
jobs in Detroit,

00:53:39.385 --> 00:53:42.720
Coleman Young turned
to the corporate leaders
he once fought against.

00:53:42.721 --> 00:53:44.680
May I say to you, Mayor Young,

00:53:44.846 --> 00:53:49.310
speaking for the business
leadership of the Detroit
metropolitan area,

00:53:49.311 --> 00:53:51.395
that you have our support.

00:53:52.521 --> 00:53:54.065
It really became
business as usual.

00:53:54.066 --> 00:53:57.735
Coleman Young was running
the city, but his only vision

00:53:57.901 --> 00:54:00.613
for economics was
what he was raised with:

00:54:01.155 --> 00:54:06.535
that large General Motors
plants, large production
facilities would be the

00:54:06.703 --> 00:54:09.788
way that you could
create economic security.

00:54:13.000 --> 00:54:20.175
The Ford Rouge plant in
the 1930s has 95,000 people
working under one roof.

00:54:21.968 --> 00:54:27.640
Today there are fewer than
100,000 GM, Ford, and
Chrysler workers in the

00:54:27.806 --> 00:54:31.018
United Auto Workers in the
United States. Total.

00:54:32.395 --> 00:54:35.940
That’s how history changes you.

00:54:35.941 --> 00:54:42.863
How hard it is to become
part of the new and not
get stuck with the old.

00:54:43.365 --> 00:54:47.493
And how, how powerful
that tendency is to keep
you boxed into the past.

00:55:29.326 --> 00:55:33.121
Detroit has by far the highest
murder rate in the nation...

00:55:33.123 --> 00:55:37.418
Number of families requiring
food assistance increased
five-fold from 1981 to...

00:55:37.420 --> 00:55:40.713
In a city that is
second in the nation
with drug-related crime...

00:55:46.845 --> 00:55:49.388
We love our neighborhood...

00:55:49.390 --> 00:55:52.350
Pack up your crack
and don’t come back!

00:55:52.351 --> 00:55:54.560
We love our neighborhood...

00:55:54.561 --> 00:55:57.521
Pack up your crack
and don’t come back!

00:55:58.981 --> 00:56:02.610
The drugs wars was devastating.

00:56:02.611 --> 00:56:06.446
Everything else was dealing
with the aftermath of that.

00:56:06.448 --> 00:56:09.908
How do you deal with people
breaking into your home?

00:56:10.076 --> 00:56:12.870
How do you deal with
murder on your street?

00:56:12.871 --> 00:56:19.001
You do a, uh, demonstration
in front of a, a dope house?
You can do that.

00:56:19.003 --> 00:56:24.881
But we were getting to a point
where we needed a picket sign
inside of our heads and hearts.

00:56:26.968 --> 00:56:31.890
You know, sometimes when
we’re, when we’re on the ground,
working in the field, people are

00:56:32.056 --> 00:56:37.436
up against some really,
um, hard, um condition.

00:56:37.603 --> 00:56:45.153
How do you... how do
you prevent yourself
from burnout?

00:56:45.320 --> 00:56:53.320
And uh, how do you... continue
to feel like you could...
work with folks and

00:56:56.121 --> 00:56:57.998
continue to motivate them?

00:56:59.500 --> 00:57:06.006
I stayed involved because
I’ve stayed in one place
for the last 55 years.

00:57:09.551 --> 00:57:17.476
I think it’s because I
grew to love Detroit and
to feel responsible

00:57:17.643 --> 00:57:22.023
for Detroit that I
was able to grow...

00:57:22.981 --> 00:57:29.946
And trying one thing after
another and trying to learn
from everything that I try.

00:57:29.948 --> 00:57:36.370
That\'s the only way. The
illusion of a quick answer
leads to burnout.

00:57:38.831 --> 00:57:41.500
As Grace struggled to
understand the violence

00:57:41.708 --> 00:57:43.711
that was devastating
her community,

00:57:43.713 --> 00:57:47.423
she returned to the evolving
ideas of Malcolm and Martin.

00:57:49.091 --> 00:57:53.596
Malcolm really struggled and
toward the end of his life

00:57:53.763 --> 00:57:57.058
began to be critical
of black nationalism

00:57:57.060 --> 00:58:01.270
and went down to make
common cause with King.

00:58:02.730 --> 00:58:07.651
After Malcolm was killed, I
would attend these meetings,

00:58:07.653 --> 00:58:12.531
and I would see young people...
14, 15, 16-year olds

00:58:12.533 --> 00:58:16.118
getting up and limiting
Malcolm to sort of

00:58:16.285 --> 00:58:18.746
“meet violence with violence.”

00:58:18.748 --> 00:58:21.581
And I knew something
was terribly wrong.

00:58:23.208 --> 00:58:31.208
Why is non-violence such
an important... not just as
a tactic, not just as strategy...

00:58:32.470 --> 00:58:35.388
But an important philosophy?

00:58:35.390 --> 00:58:42.311
Because it respects
the capacity of human
beings to grow.

00:58:42.313 --> 00:58:46.106
It gives them the opportunity
to grow their souls.

00:58:46.108 --> 00:58:49.651
And we owe that to each other.

00:58:49.653 --> 00:58:53.823
And I... it’s taken me a
long time to learn that.

00:58:54.781 --> 00:59:01.871
All of who you are
clapping, I suggest you
do some more thinking.

00:59:09.630 --> 00:59:13.885
But as I saw the violence
increase in our cities,

00:59:13.886 --> 00:59:21.766
I wondered would it have
been possible to combine
Malcolm’s militancy

00:59:21.935 --> 00:59:24.645
with King’s non-violence?

00:59:27.065 --> 00:59:32.236
I began reading King
much more carefully.

00:59:32.320 --> 00:59:40.320
In 1965 the explosion
in Watts burst out,

00:59:41.245 --> 00:59:44.665
and King flew to California.

00:59:46.125 --> 00:59:52.506
He was amazed to hear that
these young people had
never heard of him...

00:59:52.508 --> 00:59:57.136
That they thought
non-violence was foolish.

00:59:57.138 --> 01:00:01.473
And he began thinking,
“What do I do about that?”

01:00:02.266 --> 01:00:08.981
I am convinced that if we
are to get on the right
side of the world revolution,

01:00:09.148 --> 01:00:14.986
we as a nation must undergo a
radical revolution of values.

01:00:14.988 --> 01:00:19.283
We must rapidly begin...
We must rapidly begin

01:00:19.450 --> 01:00:22.953
the shift from a
thing-oriented society

01:00:22.955 --> 01:00:28.668
to a person-oriented society.

01:00:28.670 --> 01:00:34.173
King said what our young
people in our dying cities

01:00:34.175 --> 01:00:40.888
need are direct action
programs which enable
them to transform themselves

01:00:40.890 --> 01:00:43.933
and their institutions
at the same time.

01:00:49.271 --> 01:00:53.150
It’s an incredible city. That’s
one of the things that’s very
exciting about Detroit

01:00:53.151 --> 01:00:57.613
also because it’s not
going to be re-industrialized.

01:00:57.615 --> 01:01:00.450
It’s because something else
has got to come out of it.

01:01:00.451 --> 01:01:02.826
And we’re, we’re really
thinking about how do
we rebuild it now?

01:01:02.828 --> 01:01:04.620
How do we take this space?

01:01:04.786 --> 01:01:07.415
How do we make
something new out of it?

01:01:12.878 --> 01:01:18.425
In 1992, Jimmy and Grace
helped launch a program
called Detroit Summer

01:01:18.426 --> 01:01:22.305
to transform the vacant
lots and buildings of Detroit,

01:01:22.306 --> 01:01:26.516
hoping that in the
process, young people
would transform themselves.

01:01:26.518 --> 01:01:27.976
Thank you for coming back, girl.

01:01:27.978 --> 01:01:34.150
When they can see themselves
making a difference, they
also become different.

01:01:34.151 --> 01:01:39.196
That has to be part,
an integral part of the
process of revolution.

01:01:39.198 --> 01:01:44.285
I have one line. Grace gave
it to me Friday morning.

01:01:44.286 --> 01:01:48.621
Part of our organizing
work, we want to bring the
neighbor back to the ‘hood.

01:01:48.790 --> 01:01:49.790
How you doin\'?

01:01:49.956 --> 01:01:55.045
So I was 16 and I volunteered
to be a part of Detroit Summer.

01:01:55.046 --> 01:01:58.215
Um, I was actually the very
first person to sign up.

01:01:59.258 --> 01:02:01.843
And I had profound questions.

01:02:01.845 --> 01:02:06.390
Why does everybody talk about
Detroit in the past tense?
You know, “It’s just a sty.”

01:02:07.100 --> 01:02:12.521
I’m living in Detroit now, and
I don’t want to feel inferior
all the time because Detroit

01:02:12.730 --> 01:02:14.690
isn’t the city
that it used to be.

01:02:16.775 --> 01:02:22.531
When I first met Grace,
Detroit Summer had been
around for eight years.

01:02:23.490 --> 01:02:28.161
Grace gave us a tour of the
community gardens and the
murals, which seemed nice,

01:02:28.328 --> 01:02:30.371
but I wasn’t sure
what the point was.

01:02:30.373 --> 01:02:32.208
What is this?
What does this mean?
What’s the significance?

01:02:32.210 --> 01:02:35.293
You’ll have to get
them. Ask them.

01:02:35.295 --> 01:02:38.881
It would take another
decade for me to really get it.

01:02:38.883 --> 01:02:41.591
We started Back Alley Bikes

01:02:41.593 --> 01:02:43.385
as a way to get kids
to the project sites.

01:02:44.095 --> 01:02:49.266
And now we just have so
many coming in that we can’t
handle all of them really.

01:02:49.268 --> 01:02:50.268
That\'s amazing.

01:02:50.851 --> 01:02:54.563
This idea of Back Alley Bikes
was a very small thing.

01:02:54.730 --> 01:02:57.900
A seed, you know, planted
just a few years ago.

01:02:57.901 --> 01:03:02.655
And now it’s mushroomed
into all these bikes, and
the idea of a bike auction.

01:03:02.656 --> 01:03:06.908
That’s the idea... sort
of one thing leading
organically to another.

01:03:06.910 --> 01:03:12.080
It takes time, but you
know... it’s, but it’s,
uh... it’s a question...

01:03:12.248 --> 01:03:15.166
Can you think about
time in another way?

01:03:25.553 --> 01:03:29.765
Lemme tell you
something. Grace and
I in ourself is nobody.

01:03:29.766 --> 01:03:33.310
It is only in relationship to
other bodies and many

01:03:33.476 --> 01:03:35.813
somebodies that
anybody is somebody.

01:03:35.815 --> 01:03:42.278
Let me tell you that. Don’t get
it in your cotton-pickin’ mind
that you are somebody yourself.

01:03:44.280 --> 01:03:52.280
The day after Jimmy died,
I got up in the morning and, uh,

01:03:52.413 --> 01:04:00.413
I decided to have some
oatmeal for breakfast

01:04:00.588 --> 01:04:04.008
and that I would do that
from now on, that I would not...

01:04:04.175 --> 01:04:06.385
That I would just
establish a routine.

01:04:08.845 --> 01:04:11.056
One gets used to living alone.

01:04:12.516 --> 01:04:17.980
I wish Jimmy were here.
He would love to be here.

01:04:18.813 --> 01:04:20.315
But he isn’t.

01:04:21.441 --> 01:04:26.071
So life continues to
be very challenging.

01:04:30.075 --> 01:04:35.205
It’s a long time, you know.
And a lot has happened since.

01:04:46.383 --> 01:04:53.681
I don’t think that enough
has been written by women
who are on their own

01:04:53.683 --> 01:04:58.645
after 40 years of close
relationships to people.

01:05:00.690 --> 01:05:04.776
You look at the pictures
of me on that DVD.

01:05:07.321 --> 01:05:13.785
I’m so demure. I’m
so, so overshadowed.

01:05:16.288 --> 01:05:19.833
I remember someone
saying they wanted to
write a biography of Jimmy

01:05:19.835 --> 01:05:24.546
and my writing to a publisher
and asking if they would be
interested, and they said they

01:05:24.713 --> 01:05:28.050
would be more interested
in a biography, an
autobiography by me.

01:05:29.301 --> 01:05:32.136
And I couldn’t believe it. Why
would they be interested in me?

01:05:34.681 --> 01:05:38.726
And it wasn’t until I did that
that I knew who I was to some

01:05:38.893 --> 01:05:41.563
degree and could begin
to develop myself.

01:05:44.733 --> 01:05:47.151
Grace’s autobiography
introduced her to a new

01:05:47.320 --> 01:05:49.196
generation of people
beyond Detroit.

01:05:50.113 --> 01:05:52.575
Especially Asian
Americans like me.

01:05:53.741 --> 01:05:57.996
People began asking me
to speak on the Asian
American movement.

01:05:57.998 --> 01:06:00.290
And I discovered my ignorance.

01:06:01.208 --> 01:06:06.713
People are so... searching
for icons that they
sort of fixed onto me.

01:06:06.715 --> 01:06:10.843
Even though I wasn’t
an Asian American icon.

01:06:12.636 --> 01:06:16.473
The varieties of Asian
Americans that I see around
are so, are so enormous.

01:06:16.640 --> 01:06:18.058
I mean, it’s just incredible.

01:06:18.850 --> 01:06:21.728
I met Grace when I was
still struggling with
a sense of, you know,

01:06:21.730 --> 01:06:25.606
where do Asians fit in
in a world that’s mostly
white and black?

01:06:27.485 --> 01:06:32.448
When we think about Grace
in the 20th century, she
is very much an outsider.

01:06:35.826 --> 01:06:39.788
In the 21st century,
she represents the uniting

01:06:39.790 --> 01:06:43.125
of people from different races
and different backgrounds in

01:06:43.291 --> 01:06:45.210
a way that is now
defining America.

01:06:45.836 --> 01:06:47.796
Let me make a
challenge to you, okay?

01:06:47.798 --> 01:06:54.428
With people of color becoming
the new American majority in
many parts of the country,

01:06:54.430 --> 01:06:59.433
how are we going to create
a new vision for this country?

01:07:00.350 --> 01:07:04.646
A vision of a new kind of
human being which is what
is demanded at this moment.

01:07:04.648 --> 01:07:06.273
So that’s your challenge.

01:07:08.858 --> 01:07:13.071
Even in her 90s, Grace
still travels the country,
talking about revolution,

01:07:13.946 --> 01:07:16.866
but she always brings the
conversation back to Detroit.

01:07:17.743 --> 01:07:23.706
I can’t begin to tell you
the number of young
people who come to Detroit,

01:07:25.083 --> 01:07:30.923
and they come in order to
be part of this new world
that is being created.

01:07:35.093 --> 01:07:37.555
How many of you have
been to Detroit before?

01:07:37.556 --> 01:07:39.890
You’re going to see
a lot of abandonment,

01:07:39.891 --> 01:07:43.226
but you’ll see it’s about
rebuilding a new way of life

01:07:43.228 --> 01:07:47.523
for people who’ve been
completely left behind
by a capitalist system

01:07:47.731 --> 01:07:50.441
which has gone elsewhere
looking for profits.

01:07:54.530 --> 01:07:59.368
People had to find new ways
to promote economic survival

01:07:59.370 --> 01:08:03.746
when unemployment was reaching
upwards of 50% as it has now.

01:08:05.415 --> 01:08:11.046
Grace was at the forefront of
the movements in Detroit that
were developing urban gardens

01:08:11.048 --> 01:08:13.590
and eventually even
bigger urban farms.

01:08:13.591 --> 01:08:17.595
Most gardeners...
I’d say 90% of gardeners...
don’t garden on land they own.

01:08:17.596 --> 01:08:21.931
They’re gardening on vacant
lots that are next to their
house or across the street.

01:08:23.475 --> 01:08:26.478
To think of gardens
as the basis of hope

01:08:28.188 --> 01:08:32.400
was something that
was unthinkable just
a few years ago.

01:08:34.026 --> 01:08:36.863
As Detroit Summer was
emerging and they were

01:08:37.030 --> 01:08:39.575
doing murals and they
were doing gardens,

01:08:39.576 --> 01:08:41.118
the question I was
always asking was,

01:08:41.285 --> 01:08:43.161
“What does this have to
do with the movement?”

01:08:43.163 --> 01:08:45.038
They\'re nice projects.

01:08:46.873 --> 01:08:50.043
I think what I’ve begun to
understand is that individuals

01:08:50.210 --> 01:08:52.838
who experience and get
involved in those projects

01:08:52.840 --> 01:08:56.216
become leaders, become
thinkers, become
compassionate people

01:08:56.218 --> 01:08:59.051
that see themselves
as makers of history.

01:09:00.761 --> 01:09:03.806
Twenty years after first
volunteering for Detroit Summer,

01:09:03.808 --> 01:09:09.230
Julia Putnam is planning a
school on Detroit’s east side:
The Boggs Educational Center.

01:09:09.231 --> 01:09:13.775
So this is the house we
saw when we envisioned
this place as a school

01:09:13.776 --> 01:09:18.446
and got really excited
about the idea of school
as another home.

01:09:21.700 --> 01:09:27.581
I mean, it’s really gutted
to the point where the
possibilities are endless.

01:09:28.998 --> 01:09:33.878
It starts with imagining
the kids in this space
and in the community,

01:09:34.296 --> 01:09:41.678
and how it’s going to grow
more by trial and error than
it’s going to grow by blueprint.

01:09:42.220 --> 01:09:47.225
That’s always my downfall.
I think I can get it
perfect and then do it,

01:09:47.226 --> 01:09:52.146
as opposed to knowing
that I... that you do
it by making mistakes.

01:09:52.898 --> 01:09:54.983
Yep. You make
your path by walking.

01:09:59.821 --> 01:10:01.323
Detroit in the summer,
it’s more than a season /

01:10:01.531 --> 01:10:04.951
When I moved to the city it
was the core of the reason /

01:10:05.118 --> 01:10:07.536
Can I clarify all the
distortion you’re seeing? /

01:10:07.621 --> 01:10:10.248
Gotta break your mind
out of prison while
the warden is sleeping

01:10:11.083 --> 01:10:13.293
One of my favorite
quotes by Grace is that

01:10:13.501 --> 01:10:16.338
“Creativity is the key
to human liberation.”

01:10:18.173 --> 01:10:20.300
I actually try to spend my
birthday every year with

01:10:20.466 --> 01:10:22.218
Grace having like a
one-on-one conversation.

01:10:22.385 --> 01:10:24.220
Hey, Grace?

01:10:24.805 --> 01:10:26.598
Hi, how are you?
What\'s up?

01:10:26.723 --> 01:10:31.020
She’s still seeking new
answers. She’s still
asking me about hip hop,

01:10:31.021 --> 01:10:35.565
so to me the way that
she has conversation is
such an artistic approach.

01:10:37.066 --> 01:10:40.445
Conversation is now Grace’s
main form of activism.

01:10:41.821 --> 01:10:44.450
She’s constantly inviting
people into her home,

01:10:46.535 --> 01:10:48.036
but it’s not just to chat.

01:10:49.913 --> 01:10:52.456
She pushes everyone
to evolve their ideas.

01:10:53.250 --> 01:10:57.045
You begin to shape the
idea of what you mean
by quality education.

01:10:57.211 --> 01:10:58.213
You know? And so...

01:10:58.215 --> 01:11:02.926
People... First of all,
everybody who talks
about quality education

01:11:03.093 --> 01:11:04.886
is really talking about how

01:11:04.888 --> 01:11:09.808
can our people become
more like white people
and advance in the system.

01:11:11.601 --> 01:11:16.356
I don’t... you know, I,
I... let me... I, I beg to
differ with you on that.

01:11:16.358 --> 01:11:23.155
Most people think of ideas as
fixed. Ideas have their power
because they are not fixed.

01:11:23.156 --> 01:11:27.450
Once they become fixed,
they’re already dead.

01:11:27.451 --> 01:11:31.955
Making a paradigm shift
in the educational system...

01:11:31.956 --> 01:11:36.668
Well... well, what subject is
that technological shift
most evident? Mathematics.

01:11:36.670 --> 01:11:38.170
No, it’s not mathematics.

01:11:38.171 --> 01:11:39.045
Huh?

01:11:39.046 --> 01:11:39.921
No, it\'s not mathematics.

01:11:39.923 --> 01:11:40.923
I believe it is.

01:11:41.006 --> 01:11:42.048
No, I don\'t.

01:11:42.050 --> 01:11:44.885
That’s basically what we’re
trying to tell our kids to do.

01:11:45.343 --> 01:11:49.013
You’ve got to learn mathematics,
you’ve got to learn technology

01:11:49.180 --> 01:11:51.850
and so that we can
compete on the world market.

01:11:53.060 --> 01:11:56.480
That becomes part of it, but it
doesn’t have to be solely that.

01:11:56.481 --> 01:11:58.231
No, but it’s a
whole lot of that.

01:11:58.233 --> 01:11:59.608
Well, it’s a whole lot of that.

01:11:59.610 --> 01:12:01.360
That’s what kids are rejecting.

01:12:01.361 --> 01:12:03.111
And I don’t blame them.

01:12:03.113 --> 01:12:05.946
So we’ve got to think
about what is education for?

01:12:11.036 --> 01:12:12.536
I...you have me thinking.

01:12:16.416 --> 01:12:18.418
People talk about the
light bulb going on?

01:12:18.420 --> 01:12:23.173
I think that the light bulb
goes on very often in
conversations that people have,

01:12:23.465 --> 01:12:28.053
and we, we don’t pay
attention to it because it’s
so much a part of life.

01:12:28.055 --> 01:12:34.601
These are five books
that a teacher of education
is talking about...

01:12:35.101 --> 01:12:38.771
And after every
conversation, Grace gives
you something to read.

01:12:40.440 --> 01:12:41.275
Six.

01:12:41.276 --> 01:12:44.403
Six books? I’m gonna... okay...

01:12:45.361 --> 01:12:53.361
As you interviewed me this
morning, I thought how much our
ideas come out of conversation,

01:12:53.705 --> 01:12:58.375
and we don’t recognize that. I
mean, our stories are basically

01:12:58.541 --> 01:13:01.211
the dialogues that
we carry on with one

01:13:01.213 --> 01:13:05.881
another as we sort of
begin looking at the
past and future together.

01:13:07.801 --> 01:13:11.180
Over the years, my relationship
with Grace has evolved.

01:13:11.638 --> 01:13:14.056
Amazing Grace.

01:13:15.141 --> 01:13:17.185
Is that amazing?

01:13:19.395 --> 01:13:24.693
I’ve seen so many people put
her on a pedestal, and I realize
I’ve been doing the same thing.

01:13:25.735 --> 01:13:28.071
But these days, I find
myself pushing back.

01:13:28.488 --> 01:13:30.865
Come here and give me a hand.

01:13:31.283 --> 01:13:34.495
Grace is so good at subtly
directing conversations.

01:13:36.288 --> 01:13:39.500
She deflects the personal
questions and puts a
positive spin on everything.

01:13:41.543 --> 01:13:43.545
It’s starting to drive me crazy.

01:13:45.546 --> 01:13:48.800
Were there ever times
where you’ve felt regret
about anything?

01:13:50.010 --> 01:13:52.888
I don’t think I’ve ever
felt regret about what,

01:13:53.055 --> 01:13:55.473
what has happened to
me or what my life...

01:13:56.141 --> 01:14:00.228
or anything that,
that I did or didn’t do.

01:14:03.106 --> 01:14:09.195
I’ve always thought of the
negative as an opportunity
to create a positive.

01:14:11.030 --> 01:14:12.281
Always?

01:14:12.283 --> 01:14:16.870
You use the word
frustration, and I think you...

01:14:20.123 --> 01:14:26.630
that sort of provides a sort
of framework for the
questions you’ve been asking.

01:14:28.048 --> 01:14:32.010
And frustration is not
one of the things that
I’ve felt through my life.

01:14:32.718 --> 01:14:37.933
I would never describe
my life as having been
frustrated at any point.

01:14:41.686 --> 01:14:45.606
I guess I’m trying
to find, like, some
kind of connection to you.

01:14:46.566 --> 01:14:51.863
You’re so confident about
your positions and your ideas.

01:14:52.155 --> 01:14:57.743
Well, you know, if I had
undertaken the challenges that
other people have undertaken,

01:14:57.745 --> 01:15:01.998
if I had decided to become
a mother, for example, which
you have decided to become,

01:15:03.333 --> 01:15:06.336
I could imagine a
lot of frustrations.

01:15:06.338 --> 01:15:08.796
So in that sense,

01:15:10.798 --> 01:15:14.595
I’ve lived more the life
of a man than of a woman.

01:15:16.221 --> 01:15:20.225
I can’t relate to someone
who doesn’t doubt themselves
is what I’m saying.

01:15:20.600 --> 01:15:24.103
Or question, you know...
“Did I ever make a mistake?”

01:15:24.105 --> 01:15:27.941
Because your whole thing
about self-transformation

01:15:28.108 --> 01:15:31.278
should require, like,
an internal struggle.

01:15:36.616 --> 01:15:39.786
Well, I think probably...

01:15:44.498 --> 01:15:47.293
That’s a, that’s a criticism

01:15:49.630 --> 01:15:53.591
that I should be
making of myself, that...

01:15:55.926 --> 01:16:01.433
that I should be talking so
much about transformation
and not experiencing it.

01:16:01.933 --> 01:16:07.313
I think this encounter
will, will be with
me for quite a while.

01:16:08.023 --> 01:16:14.570
I’ll have to sort of internalize
it and see what it,
what it means to me.

01:16:14.571 --> 01:16:20.701
You know, it has to be
incorporated into who
I am and my trajectory.

01:16:21.578 --> 01:16:25.456
And that will probably
happen because I,
I’m pretty good at that.

01:16:32.130 --> 01:16:37.093
Every time I visit Detroit,
I wonder if this will be my
last conversation with Grace.

01:16:39.470 --> 01:16:44.058
Oh dear, it takes so much
effort just to get around.

01:16:48.521 --> 01:16:55.028
On the one hand, I have
endured. And on the
other hand I have changed.

01:16:58.531 --> 01:17:02.201
I can remember swearing
when I was young

01:17:02.203 --> 01:17:07.873
that I would not change
because if I changed,
I would betray the revolution.

01:17:09.083 --> 01:17:13.338
And as I’ve grown older,
I’ve understood that I
should change and,

01:17:14.255 --> 01:17:18.551
and changing is really more
honorable than not changing.

01:17:21.053 --> 01:17:26.726
It’s the 97th birthday of
writer and radical activist
Grace Lee Boggs.

01:17:26.728 --> 01:17:28.895
Good morning, Miss Grace.

01:17:31.356 --> 01:17:32.690
One...

01:17:32.691 --> 01:17:33.775
Two...

01:17:33.776 --> 01:17:35.193
Three...

01:17:35.195 --> 01:17:36.903
Four...

01:17:38.863 --> 01:17:41.408
Time is irreversible.

01:17:42.783 --> 01:17:47.496
The arrow is pointing forward.
We have no idea what
the future holds.

01:17:51.460 --> 01:17:55.921
What’s very hard for older
people to understand... you
know, it’s like someone said,

01:17:56.088 --> 01:17:57.965
“You can’t practice
being president.”

01:17:58.966 --> 01:18:03.388
You can’t practice being old.
And aging is not for sissies.

01:18:03.390 --> 01:18:06.433
You don’t know how much...

01:18:07.558 --> 01:18:10.186
How much pride,

01:18:10.978 --> 01:18:15.566
how much responsibility,
how much fear

01:18:16.651 --> 01:18:18.445
are tied up in that.

01:18:20.821 --> 01:18:26.661
I, I’ve thought about
what it is like to live
longer than anybody else.

01:18:27.661 --> 01:18:34.878
Longer than your siblings.
You’d be amazed how
alone you feel in the world.

01:18:40.591 --> 01:18:45.888
I have been very
conscious that I’m in
the process of dying.

01:18:47.848 --> 01:18:53.896
To me, that’s not a
terrible thing. So I see this
as a period of transition...

01:18:54.646 --> 01:19:00.611
that I can make a transition
by the things that I
choose to engage in.

01:19:06.451 --> 01:19:08.870
Hey Grace! I’m making that
bacon that you had left over.

01:19:08.871 --> 01:19:10.788
Hi! Hi, everybody.

01:19:11.038 --> 01:19:13.625
I’m very conscious of
that sense of time.

01:19:13.791 --> 01:19:16.503
How long will I live?
How long should I live?

01:19:17.545 --> 01:19:21.800
At the same time, I’m
very conscious of what time
it is on the clock of the world.

01:19:29.140 --> 01:19:34.186
As I have grown older, I think
more in terms of centuries,

01:19:34.188 --> 01:19:38.858
whereas 8 or 9 years ago, I
was only talking about decades.

01:19:41.276 --> 01:19:47.450
And it’s so obvious that we are
coming to a huge turning point.

01:19:50.745 --> 01:19:55.625
You begin with a protest, but
you have to move on from there.

01:19:57.876 --> 01:20:02.923
But just being angry,
just being resentful,
just being outraged

01:20:03.090 --> 01:20:05.468
does not constitute revolution.

01:20:09.180 --> 01:20:15.020
So many institutions of
our society need reinventing.

01:20:16.353 --> 01:20:22.068
The time has come for
a new dream. That’s what
being a revolutionary is.

01:20:25.905 --> 01:20:29.450
I don’t know what the
next American revolution
is going to be like,

01:20:30.368 --> 01:20:36.875
but you might be able to
imagine it if your imagination
were rich enough.