Grace Lee Boggs of Detroit

The Boggs Center

The Boggs Center was founded in 1995 by friends and associates of James Boggs (1919 -1993) and Grace Boggs (1915 - ) to honor and continue their legacy as movement activists and theoreticians. 

Our aim is to help grassroots activists develop themselves into visionary leaders and critical thinkers who can devise pro-active strategies for rebuilding and respiriting our cities and rural communities from the ground up, demonstrate the power of ideas in changing ourselves, our reality, and demystify leadership.

Board members engage in diverse community building activities: youth leadership development, urban agriculture, environmental justice and more.

Boggs Educational Center

A NEED
Many of the challenging conditions Americans toil under today are a direct reflection of the failings of our educational system.  Detroit, the epicenter of the nation’s political-economic crises, provides a prime example of the material, psychological, and social costs of our attachment to the existing system.  Our 47% rate of functional illiteracy, our failure to graduate three-quarters of our high school youth, our 10.6% unemployment rate, the fact that almost half of our children are living below poverty level, and the reality that the vast majority of our youth no longer believe in the version of “the American dream” that our grandparents tied their lives to, and our parents only began to realize – all are clear signs of our need to change.  All of these problems are rooted in the inability of our nation’s current educational system to envision and practice the full potential of schooling for human development.  Nowhere is the deficiency so keenly felt as in Detroit.  READ MORE

A VISION
Children who attend the Grace Lee Boggs Educational Center walk to school each morning.  Some walk with their parents, some with their siblings.  This is easy to do; their school is located in their neighborhood.

They play on the way, meet up with friends.  They say hello to the adults they have come to know while walking this route since kindergarten.  They pass gardens that they help senior citizens tend.  They may stop to pick a weed or to filch a ripe cherry tomato.  They pass art installations that double as functional play equipment and swing or jump or climb.  They know all the tricks; they have helped design and build them.

From the kids who have attended this school since its inception to the very new arrivals, everyone feels safe.   They are surrounded by people who love them and who will look out for them and they know this to be true.  They have risen to the high level of academic and social expectations asked of them at their school.  The community has also risen to the level of support they need to be whole, healthy, and strong.  READ MORE


A MISSION
Our students will be creative critical thinkers who employ multiple literacies and contribute to their surrounding communities.

Embedded in our mission are the following guiding principles.  These principles are inherent in both how we will facilitate learning and why we believe educational experiences are essential for children and adults.   READ MORE