Grace Lee Boggs Responds to our Review of her Book, The Next American Revolution

Our current issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy published two reviews of The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century by Grace Lee Boggs with Scott Kurashige.  Actually, one is a traditional book review and the other is a personal open letter to Grace Lee Boggs for the influence the book has had on the life of this reviewer.  The reviewers will be responding to each other later on this blog. We are pleased to print Grace's response as part of our effort to engage our readers in an ongoing conversation.

Grace Lee Boggs Responds to her Reviewers from the Journal of Educational Controversy
with Scott Kurashige

It has been a true joy to see so many diverse peoples turn to this little book for help in understanding how and why another world is necessary, possible, and already in the process of being created. The thoughtful responses by Molly and Victor reveal the huge reserves of humanity that have been repressed by our "civilization" and are being unleashed by the movements of 2011 to heal us.

Their book reviews further help us to understand that people are finding inspiration from the book because they are connecting with a set of ideas whose time has come:


• Maybe it’s because it is giving Americans in all walks of life a more people-friendly view of revolution as empowerment rather than struggle for political power.


• Maybe it helps us view Revolutionaries as Solutionaries, working together to solve very practical problems of daily life, growing our souls by growing our own food.


• Maybe it’s giving us the new, more positive view of ourselves that we’ve been hungry for.


• Maybe it helps us envision ourselves as Revolutionaries, moving away from the wrong side of the world revolution where we have seemed stuck since the Vietnam War.


• Maybe it also helps us see ourselves as Evolutionaries, making the radical revolution of values that Dr. King called for during that war, transformimg ourselves from materialists, militarists, and individualists into a people who can be proud of how we are advancing humankind to a new stage of consciousness, creativity, and social and political responsibility.

To link to the book reviews, go to:

1. A Book Review by Victor Nolet

2. A Personal Open Letter to Grace Lee Boggs by Molly Lawrence