American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs

Director Lee (no relation, but she was tracing those named Grace Lee) does an excellent job of chronicling the remarkable life of Grace Lee Boggs, a nearly 100-year-old Chinese American who has spent her life as an activist supporting African Americans, a labor organizer, a civil rights advocate, a philosopher, an Asian American activist, and an environmentalist. Born into an affluent family in New York City, Boggs received a PhD and then moved to Chicago where she soon became a Marxist involving herself in black rights. Moving then to Detroit to edit a newsletter for workers, she met and married James Boggs, a black activist and writer. Together, they participated in every uprising in Detroit and many beyond, often to their peril. Sometimes, however, there was too much activism and not enough reflection, she says here, and so she has devoted herself to changing people's thinking in her later years.