James Boggs (1919-1993) and Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015) were two largely unsung but critically important figures in the black freedom struggle. Born and raised in Alabama, James Boggs came to Detroit during the Great Migration, becoming an automobile worker and a union activist. Grace Lee was a Chinese American scholar who studied Hegel, worked with Caribbean political theorist C. L. R. James, and moved to Detroit to work toward a new American revolution. As husband and wife, the couple was influential in the early stages of what would become the Black Power movement, laying the intellectual foundation for racial and urban struggles during one of the most active social movement periods in recent U.S. history. Stephen Ward details both the personal and the political dimensions of the Boggses' lives, highlighting the vital contributions these two figures made to black activist thinking. At once a dual biography of two crucial figures and a vivid portrait of Detroit as a center of activism, Ward's book restores the Boggses, and the intellectual strain of black radicalism they shaped, to their rightful place in postwar American history.
Making a way out of no way: Jimmy's Southern roots and urban groundings -- Black radical Detroit: Jimmy, the Labor Movement, and the Left -- Embracing contradictions: Grace's philosophic journey and political emergence -- Revolutionary Marxism: Grace, black protest, and the Johnson-Forest tendency -- Marxism and marriage in Detroit -- Building correspondence -- Facing multiple realities -- Only one side is right -- An ending and a beginning -- The American revolution.
Note
Issued as part of book collections on Project MUSE.
Bibliography (note)
Includes bibliographical references (pages 399-417) and index.
Access (note)
Access restricted to authorized users.
Source of description (note)
Description based on print version record.
Author
Ward, Stephen M., 1970-
Title
In Love and Struggle [electronic resource] : The Revolutionary Lives of James and Grace Lee Boggs / Stephen M. Ward.