Peace everyone,

We had an incredible time together last year during Detroit 2012 and now it’s time again to build on what we’ve already started. In addition to celebrating Grace Lee Boggs’ 98th birthday as well as the release of her documentary, we will be coming together again to deepen our discussion and work from last year and we are eager to learn from what you all have been doing in your own communities across the country.

In our quest for humane responses to gentrification, foreclosures, school closures, joblessness, emergency managers, transportation cuts, and police brutality, people are working diligently every day to re-imagine everything from democracy to public safety, education and work. This year, as we commemorate the 50th Anniversaries of Malcolm X’s Message to the Grassroots at the historic King Solomon Church, Dr. King’s march on Woodward in Detroit before over 100,000 people and James Boggs’ epic release of The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker’s Notebook, we invite the world to join us as we come together again this summer to build on the abundant soul growth that we experienced in Detroit last July.

Let us come together for our 2nd annual gathering as we:

• work towards a deepened understanding of visionary organizing, theoretically, historically and practically.

• lay the groundwork for a national network of “Re-imagining Cities,” each taking on revolution, democracy, education, work, food justice, and public safety in fresh ways which make sense for our respective communities, as we continue our work of restoring the neighbor back to the hood.

• create a “think tank” atmosphere to support each visiting delegation, in order to learn about their own history, contradictions, concepts and practice of visionary organizing.

As capitalism continues towards collapse, and as disenfranchisement rises, it is critical that we continue to work together to create a space which nurtures the growing of our souls this summer in Detroit. What, inside of yourself, would you like to transform? What would you like to make happen in Detroit this summer? In your own community?

Join us: As We Shake the World with a New Dream . . .

Location: Detroit

JUNE 23, 2013 – JUNE 30, 2013

For more info. contact: Boggs Center at 313-923-0797 or Tawana Petty at 313-433-9882 or Visit: www.dcoh.org or www.detroit2012.org

 If you are interested in donating to our efforts, you may do so via: www.boggscenter.org

SAVE THE DATE: “American Revolutionary:
The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs”
June 29, 2013 at the DIA

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Below is a wonderful address Grace Lee Boggs gave at the National Council of Elders Detroit Press Conference:

We’ve launched a new Facebook group to keep the conversation. Please join the group and join the conversation!

Join here.

This piece was written after the Peace Zones and State of the Community discussions during Detroit 2012

Over the past four decades we’ve seen the dismantlement of our schools, neighborhoods and families. Loss of income and lack of commitment from government and the private sector which could have helped change conditions. We have experienced chemical warfare which has left our young people reaching for a community that they have yet to experience. We believe in this time in Detroit’s history that Detroit needs a people’s first mentality. It is now or never! We have to band together to not only protect each other, but to provide for each other, share with each other, feed each other, care for each other and more importantly love each other in these tough times Detroit, but we need efficient and effective action. We need to continue to be proactive in rebuilding and re-spiriting Detroit. We have to change the mindset and the culture of Detroit, because if we don’t, all the money in the world will not help in Detroit’s rebirth. The people of Detroit need a rebirth which will fuel Detroit’s rebirth.

Through this “Declaration of Hope and Love”, we are here to convey to all Detroiters that every life in our community is valuable, every life in our community deserves to be loved, and every life in our community needs to be invested in and by not doing our part we are helping to sustain the underdeveloped behavior that is contributing to the social mayhem in our neighborhoods. We need to develop and create liberated peace zones, which will breed hope amongst the people and instill high expectations within the people to treat each other like human beings and not like animals! We need every human being to join our ranks; white, black, brown and any other color. We need people to overstand that we have to restore the neighbor back to the hood, if not the hood will be the death of all of us. People survive in hoods through underdeveloped behavior, but people live in neighborhoods through love and care. Our greatest resource is our capacity love and care for each other and for our neighbors, which will bridge the gap between hope and desperation. We firmly believe that this is not a time for war, but for peace. It is not a time for acrimony, but for harmony. It is not a time for discord but for direction.

Ron Scott and Yusef Shakur

Silvia Federici is a researcher, activist and educator. She was born and raised in Italy but came to the US in 1967 on a scholarship to study Philosophy at the University of Buffalo. Since then, she has taught at several universities in the US and also at the University of Port Harcourt in Nigeria. She is now Emerita Professor at Hofstra University (Long Island, NY) and lives in Brooklyn.

A veteran feminist activist, Federici’s work is informed by and in dialogue with the many struggles which have animated her career. Since the early 1970s Federici was, along with theorists such as Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James, a founder of the International Feminist Collective and an organizer with the famous Wages for Housework campaign. This movement brought together a global alliance of feminist groups to make a revolutionary challenge at the very hinge of capitalist and patriarchal power by demanding economic sovereignty for women engaged in the elemental labour of social reproduction.

Read the full interview here.

RAW FOOTAGE – Grace Lee Boggs: The Interview from Detroit je t'aime on Vimeo.

The folks over at Change Brings Hope have been writing and sharing photos from their visit to Detroit 2012.

Visit their site below:

What an amazing time the past 2 weeks this has been! We posted updates as they came in, and have photos posted on our Facebook page.

Have you submitted your media or filled out the evaluation? We also have a  We’re eager to hear from you!

Thank you!

Dear Detroit 2012 participant,

On behalf of the local and national organizing team,  Feedom Freedom, the Birwood Block Club, the Urban Network, the Coalition Against Police Brutality/Peace Zones for Life, the Boggs Center, and all of the organizations that worked to make these two weeks possible, we want to thank you for your energy, your spirit, your work and active participation in Detroit 2012.   From July 1 when we celebrated Grace Lee Boggs’ 97th birthday and watched the premier of We Are Not Ghosts to your discussion with Frithjof Bergman, Grace & each other we all deepened our thinking, vision and historical understanding.  We experienced the joys of bringing our hands, hearts and minds together as we worked in gardens and neighborhoods, learning about one another, the city and ourselves. We endured incredible heat and shared lovingly prepared food. Now, we need to ask what new responsibilities do we have because of this experience?

Where do we go from here?

1.   Ideas: Deepen our thinking, analysis, and questions.

Continue to engage in conversations about re-imagining revolution, technology, leadership, work, democracy, education, public safety, food security, economics, arts and activism.

Create a study group based upon The Next American Revolution:  Sustainable Activism for the 21 Century.   Use the study guide which is available from www.boggsenter.org

2.  Place Based Practice:  Make a commitment to becoming creators of history in your city, town, or neighborhood.

Read new publication:  Commitment is Key and New Concepts in Revolution.

3.  Network: Deepen our connections as we create a national movement, celebrating and sharing our work, practice, questions, and readings.

Make www.detroit2012.org your connection to these past 2 weeks.

Upload images, articles, stories.

4.  Support and protect the work in Detroit: Spread the story of Detroit and show We are not Ghosts to friends, family, churches, synagogues, and organizations.

5.  Reach out to others: We especially need to enlarge our vision of the new American Dream by reaching out to those of European descent who are most vulnerable to fear and hatred of the counter revolutionary forces in this country. Find ways to share the Next American Revolution with them.

Over the past two weeks a lot of amazing photos, videos, and audio was recorded by participants.

Use the form below to upload your photos, video and audio clips to us.  We’ll do our best to re-broadcast what we receive in the coming weeks and beyond!

Photos from Detroit 2012

Detroit 2012 is on!

Daily updates are being posted here as they come in. Leave a reply below to leave us your thoughts and comments. We want to hear from you!

Join the twitter conversation by adding the hash-tag #detroit2012 to your tweets. Below you’ll see all the conversation that’s fit to tweet!

Be sure to check the calendar for what’s on schedule today!

And if you attended, fill out the evaluation to let us know your thoughts.