I wonder if we in the Kickapoo Valley area can gather under the umbrella of "Our Beloved Community" in order to organize to preserve all those things we love about living in this place. This is a concept that was originated by Grace Lee Boggs, a long-time activist and organizer. Her ideas, based on Martin Luther King Jr., have helped to transform community in urban America. I wonder if it is time for rural America and this part of rural Wisconsin to come together, organize, network and preserve and expand those things we love.
This_link is to a Bill Moyers program (video or read the transcript) with Grace Lee Boggs. Towards the end she provides some sense of the movement of "the beloved community". I excerpt the end of the transcript below and continue with more in the full story.
BILL MOYERS: These days, Boggs works through what's known as the Beloved Community Initiative to encourage people like this in cities across the country to see themselves as crucial to how democracy works. And for whom.
BILL MOYERS: You know, you didn't have to come here this past weekend. You're 91 years old. Why did you come?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: Because I think the initiative that I am part of, the beloved communities initiative, is identifying and helping to bring together small groups who are making this cultural revolution that we so urgently need in our country.
GRACE LEE BOGGS: And I see this as part of a pilgrimage which human beings have been embarked on for thousands and tens of thousands of years. People think of evolution mainly in terms of anatomical changes. I think that we have to think of evolution in terms of-- very elemental human changes. And so, we're evolving both through our knowledge and through our experiences to another a stage of human--humankind. So, revolution and evolution are no longer so separate.
BILL MOYERS: But the economic system doesn't reflect this evolution. Outsourcing of jobs, the flight of capital, the power of capital over workers. All of that has-- the system isn't catching up this.
GRACE LEE BOGGS: Well-- just-- don't expect the system to catch up, the system is part of the system! What I think is that, not since the 30s have American have the American people, the ordinary Americans faced such uncertainty with regard to the economic system. In the 30s, what we did, was we confronted management and were able, thereby to gain many advantages, particularly to gain a respect for the dignity of labor. That's no longer possible today, because of the ability of corporations to fly all over the place and begin setting up-- all this outsourcing. So, we're gonna have - people are finding other ways to regain control over the way they make their living.
BILL MOYERS: You know, a lot of young people out there would agree with your analysis. With your diagnosis. And then they will say; What can I do that's practical? How do I make the difference that Grace Lee Boggs is taking about. What would you be doing?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: I would say do something local. Do something real, however, small. And don't-- don't diss the political things, but understand their limitations.
BILL MOYERS: Don't 'diss' them?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: Disrespect them.
BILL MOYERS: Disrespect them?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: Understand their limitations. Politics there was a time when we believed that if we just achieved political power it would solve all our problems. And I think what we learned from experiences of the Russian Revolution, all those revolutions, that those who become--who try to get power in the state, become part of the state. They become locked in to the practices. And we have to begin creating new practices.
BILL MOYERS: What will it take for this next round of change that you see as promising? What would it take?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: It takes discussions like this. I mean, it takes a whole lot of things. It takes people doing things. It takes people talking about things. It takes dialogue. It takes changing the whole lot of ways by which we think.
BILL MOYERS: Do you see any leaders who are advocating that change? I mean, people that we would all recognize, anybody we'd all recognize?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: I don't see any leaders, and I think we have to rethink the concept of "leader." 'Cause "leader" implies "follower." And, so many-- not so many, but I think we need to appropriate, embrace the idea that we are the leaders we've been looking for.
I think we are not only the leaders, but the base that needs to be networked together, communicating, and all pulling in one direction. Our Beloved Community--a place we care about, people we are willing to stand with, and a sense we are all in this together.
BILL MOYERS: Yes, but where is the sign of the movement today?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: I believe that we are at the point now, in the United States, where a movement is beginning to emerge. I think that the calamity, the quagmire of the Iraq war, the outsourcing of jobs, the drop-out of young people from the education system, the monstrous growth of the prison-industrial complex, the planetary emergency, which we are engulfed at the present moment, is demanding that instead of just complaining about these things, instead of just protesting about these things, we begin to look for, and hope for, another way of living. And I think that-- that's where the movement--I-- I see a movement beginning to emerge, 'cause I see hope beginning to trump despair.
BILL MOYERS: Where do you see the signs of it?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: I see the signs in the various-- small groups that are emerging all over the place to try and regain our humanity in very practical ways. For example in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Will Allen, who is a former basketball player has purchased-- two and a half acres of land, with five greenhouses on it, and he is beginning to grow food, healthy food for his community. And communities are growing up around that idea. I mean, that's a huge change in the way that we think of the city. I mean, the things we have to restore are so elemental. Not just food, and not just healthy food, but a different way of relating to time and history and to the earth.
BILL MOYERS: And a garden does that for you?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: Yes. A garden does all sorts of things. It helps young people to relate to the Earth in a different way. It helps them to relate to their elders in a different way. It helps them to think of time in a different way.
GRACE LEE BOGGS: Well, if we just press a button, and you think that's the key to reality, you're in a hell of a mess of a human being.
BILL MOYERS: So it is that this woman who marched and agitated and argued in mass movements and social protests for over 70 years...has come full circle...to find seeds of hope in small places where people work quietly and patiently on every imaginable front.
Man # 1: We work on trying to change policies for homeless people.
Man # 2: I think information is power
BILL MOYERS: They get little public attention....although they're
concerned with the most basic human needs...
Man # 3: We want jobs that actually empower us, you know, and make it so that you actually have a say in what happens at your workplace.
[same as on the front page from here to end]
BILL MOYERS: These days, Boggs works through what's known as the Beloved Community Initiative to encourage people like this in cities across the country to see themselves as crucial to how democracy works. And for whom.
BILL MOYERS: You know, you didn't have to come here this past weekend. You're 91 years old. Why did you come?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: Because I think the initiative that I am part of, the beloved communities initiative, is identifying and helping to bring together small groups who are making this cultural revolution that we so urgently need in our country.
GRACE LEE BOGGS: And I see this as part of a pilgrimage which human beings have been embarked on for thousands and tens of thousands of years. People think of evolution mainly in terms of anatomical changes. I think that we have to think of evolution in terms of-- very elemental human changes. And so, we're evolving both through our knowledge and through our experiences to another a stage of human--humankind. So, revolution and evolution are no longer so separate.
BILL MOYERS: But the economic system doesn't reflect this evolution. Outsourcing of jobs, the flight of capital, the power of capital over workers. All of that has-- the system isn't catching up this.
GRACE LEE BOGGS: Well-- just-- don't expect the system to catch up, the system is part of the system! What I think is that, not since the 30s have American have the American people, the ordinary Americans faced such uncertainty with regard to the economic system. In the 30s, what we did, was we confronted management and were able, thereby to gain many advantages, particularly to gain a respect for the dignity of labor. That's no longer possible today, because of the ability of corporations to fly all over the place and begin setting up-- all this outsourcing. So, we're gonna have - people are finding other ways to regain control over the way they make their living.
BILL MOYERS: You know, a lot of young people out there would agree with your analysis. With your diagnosis. And then they will say; What can I do that's practical? How do I make the difference that Grace Lee Boggs is taking about. What would you be doing?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: I would say do something local. Do something real, however, small. And don't-- don't diss the political things, but understand their limitations.
BILL MOYERS: Don't 'diss' them?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: Disrespect them.
BILL MOYERS: Disrespect them?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: Understand their limitations. Politics there was a time when we believed that if we just achieved political power it would solve all our problems. And I think what we learned from experiences of the Russian Revolution, all those revolutions, that those who become-- who try to get power in the state, become part of the state. They become locked in to the practices. And we have to begin creating new practices.
BILL MOYERS: What will it take for this next round of change that you see as promising? What would it take?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: It takes discussions like this. I mean, it takes a whole lot of things. It takes people doing things. It takes people talking about things. It takes dialogue. It takes changing the whole lot of ways by which we think.
BILL MOYERS: Do you see any leaders who are advocating that change? I mean, people that we would all recognize, anybody we'd all recognize?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: I don't see any leaders, and I think we have to rethink the concept of "leader." 'Cause "leader" implies "follower." And, so many-- not so many, but I think we need to appropriate, embrace the idea that we are the leaders we've been looking for.
