Grace Lee Boggs and Immanuel Wallerstein in dialogue was by turns breath-taking, challenging, thought-provoking, and inspiring. Here were two thinkers and revolutionaries whose lives in the struggle for a more humane world span more than a hundred years trying together to name the moment, to figure out where we are on the clock of the world and what is to be done. Each believes that ideas matter---that understanding and opposing the ideology and culture of capitalism is critical---that we are living in a dynamic history-in-the-making and that what we do or don't do makes a difference, and that we must struggle in the local and in the present as we connect to the global. Each argued that the world of 2050 will be what we make it.
Living at the expense of the earth and people has brought us to a cross-roads: evolution to a higher order of humanity or complete disaster. But because another world is possible does not mean it is inevitable. And in that uncertainty is both a challenge and a hope.
Vincent Harding brought wisdom, perspective, love and generosity to the education PMA. He argued that we are all citizens of a country that does not yet exist, and that we are all practitioners of an education that does not yet exist. The PMA was powered by imagination and a spirit of generosity.
The day ended with song and dance and tribute to Grace on her 95th birthday. Born in 1915, still opening her eyes, still trying to figure a way forward, still daring to struggle, to re-think, to imagine, and to engage again. She was beaming in the center of the room while people reminisced and re-energized for the struggle ahead.
Details on Bill's latest book: To Teach, the Jouney in Comics
