Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015) and NDSG
In 2010, Bill Ayers invited Grace Lee Boggs to the NDSG Annual Meeting. That year, Grace, Shea, and Kim drove from Detroit to Mundelein, Illinois to attend their first NDSG Meeting. At the event, Grace and other Detroit educators, including Julia Putnam and Shari Saunders, shared their educational insights and visions for the future of education. During the meeting a NDSG member, Greg Smith, gave Grace his newly written book on place-based education. The exchange of books, ideas, and visions for a different kind of education in our country established a foundation for meaningful relationships between Detroiters and NDSG members.
In 2013, after many years of having its Annual Meeting in Illinois, NDSG decided to host its gathering in Detroit. This was an important shift for the NDSG and was both a way for the group to think more about issues of race, class, radical change and education and to include Grace in its deliberations as travel was difficult for her at 98 years old. In 2014, Grace spoke at her last NDSG Annual Meeting in Detroit. Over the next two years, Grace’s health began to fail and many NDSG members were supportive both financially and spiritually. On October 5, 2015 Grace Lee Boggs passed away peacefully. She has left a challenge to all of us to continue to engage in the questions of what is education for? What kind of education do our children need and deserve to become fully responsible, productive and caring people. What can we do to create the world anew? |
We Are Shaking the World with a New Dream
In this 2012 video, Grace Lee Boggs talks to a group at Boggs Center, during a learning journey led by Margaret Wheatley and Richard Feldman. 40 participants came from all over US, Canada, Brazil, UK and Turkey to learn about how people are re-imagining and re-creating Detroit in a post-industrial world. At the age of 97, Grace is sharp, inspiring and beautiful.
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