THE NEW SCHOOL PRESENTS CONVERSATION WITH
NONAGENARIAN ACTIVIST GRACE LEE BOGGS

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NEW YORK, March 28, 2012—On Sunday, April 22, The New School will present a rare New York appearance by Dr. Grace Lee Boggs, who for the last 70 years has been on the forefront of the most significant social movements in the United States of the past century. At 96 years of age, Boggs provides a unique perspective on the limitations of activism and offers a shared, bottom-up vision for social change in her most recent book, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the 21st Century (University of California Press, 2011).

For her appearance at The New School, Boggs will engage in conversation with New School faculty member Bill Gaskins and New School student Melina Pelaez, taking the Martin Luther King speech "Where Do We Go from Here?" as a starting point. The unfinished business of the major 20th century movements illustrates many of the unmet challenges posed by King in this historic 1967 speech, including "the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism." With the emergence of the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street movements, this event will shine a light on the potential of this historic moment.

Boggs, born to Chinese immigrant parents in 1915, is an activist, writer and speaker whose political involvement encompasses the such important movements as Labor, Civil Rights, Black Power, Women's Rights and Environmental Justice. In 1940 she received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Bryn Mawr College. In the 1940s and early 1950s, she worked with West Indian Marxist historian C.L.R. James. In 1953 she came to Detroit where she married James Boggs, African-American autoworker, labor and community activist, writer and strategist. Working together in grassroots groups and projects, they were partners for more than 40 years until James' death in July 1993. Their 1974 book, Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century was re-issued by Monthly Review Press with a new 50-page introduction in 2008. Her autobiography, Living for Change, published by University of Minnesota Press in 1998, is widely used in university classes on social movements and autobiography writing.

This event is sponsored by the New School Social Justice Committee (SJC), which is composed of students, faculty, staff, and administrators from across the university. SJC initiates efforts and promotes institutional change through the work of students, alumni, faculty, staff, trustees, and community partners to address economic, social, and cultural inequities. For more information, visit http://blogs.newschool.edu/social-justice.

About The New School
The New School, based in the heart of New York City's Greenwich Village, is a legendary, progressive university inspiring undergraduates, graduate students and others to catalyze change in an inconstant world. Founded in 1919 as a hub of intellectual freedom by a group that included Charles Beard, James Harvey Robinson, John Dewey, and Thorstein Veblen, The New School today is a major degree-granting university comprised of distinct academic divisions. The university's 10,500 students are enrolled in 88 academic degree programs in the humanities and social sciences, design, administration and management, and the performing arts. In addition, the university's campus welcomes 3,544 adult learners in more than 650 continuing education courses every year. The New School holds hundreds of public programs that exemplify its commitment to democratic practice and social justice. For more information, visit www.newschool.edu.

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