You Say You Want a Revolution?

Grace and her husband, Jimmy Boggs (now deceased), a 30-year Chrysler autoworker, and a host of their friends began articulating the next revolution in the 1980s. Their work eventually planted the seeds for “Detroit Summer” in 1992 where young and old would re-generate their neighborhoods by developing community gardens and producing public works of art.

This effort further blossomed into forming a local agricultural network that is now impacting the city’s food system by growing thousands of pounds of fresh, nutritious produce through organic agriculture techniques, finding alternative uses of blighted spaces, creating income generating activities, and diversifying crops and products for market.

Gardens are also affecting larger issues like reducing crime, cleaning up trash-strewn lots, connecting people to nature, nurturing leadership in citizens young and old and improving property values. What’s more, gardens have rekindled people’s hope in the future, a sentiment missing in Detroit since the “rebellion” of 1967.

This revolution urges citizens not to stand around and wait for leaders to initiate needed changes. Instead, individuals are learning that they can enlist others to help them rebuild their communities. Interestingly, it’s the young who are especially stepping up to this challenge through local service programs, college projects, and the creation of small businesses and organizations.

“What we’re witnessing is a national government that is incapable of solving the questions of our society and our world because politicians are so subject to lobbyists and corporations that fund their campaigns, that they can’t do what needs to be done,” said Grace.

She cited Paul Hawken’s book, “Blessed Unrest,” which discusses how small groups all over the world are rebuilding their communities from the ground up and changing the world because people are connecting to one another.

“We have the opportunity to take a great leap forward in these very challenging times,” said Grace. “We need to change our institutions and ourselves. We need to seize opportunities. We need to launch our imaginations beyond the thinking of the past. We need to discern who we are and expand on our humanness and sacredness. That’s how we change the world, which happens because WE will be the change.”

This article appeared on Common Dreams on Sunday, July 20, 2008.

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