Weekend preview: screening of Grace Lee Boggs documentary at the DFT – Knight Foundation
Arts

Weekend preview: screening of Grace Lee Boggs documentary at the DFT

I first heard the name of Grace Lee Boggs when she was one of the storytellers at a Moth Mainstage event at the Fillmore in November of last year. At the time, I thought it was a disservice to the greater story of her life, which ranges nearly a century, to be limited to a mere 10-minute window (though she delivered well and concisely, all things considered). Now that injustice has been rectified, as Grace Lee Boggs is the subject of a new documentary American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, which will have a free screening at the Detroit Film Theatre this Saturday, June 29th at 3 p.m. Grace Lee Boggs in her Moth Mainstage performance last November.

The documentary is directed by Grace Lee, and will cover her amazing life story, which includes seven decades as a social activist, authorship of five books and her work as a philosopher. She has been devoted to civil rights and the labor movement, working with fellow activists such as Richard Wright and Katharine Dunham, and collaborating with James Boggs, her husband of 40 years. The film promises a showcase of archival footage from the 1920s through present day, where Grace Lee is clearly still hard at work carrying a message of social change and revolution that she has believed in all her life.  Such dedication, constancy and world wisdom from a woman born in 1913, who has lived to see all the change a century can bring, and still knows the greatest changes are yet to come.

Detroit Film Theatre: 5200 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-833-7887; www.dia.org/detroitfilmtheatre/14/DFT.aspx.