Entwined struggles against racism inspire hope
Changes needed
On the front page of her autobiography Living For Change, Grace Lee Boggs, recognized as a national Black Power figure of her time, wrote: "Had I not been born female and Chinese American, I would not have realized from early on that fundamental changes were necessary in society."
Back in the 1940s, it was her inability as a PhD-holding "Oriental" to land a decent job that led the young Grace Lee to live in a rat-infested basement in Chicago, which in turn brought her into contact with the black community for the first time. Later coming back home from her honeymoon with James Boggs, the couple had to sleep in their car since most motels refused to let black people in.
United in love and struggle, the two went on to co-author many articles on the black movement and help found the all-Black Freedom Now Party in the 1960s, with Lee being its only nonblack member. Two months before Martin Luther King Jr made his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech during the 1963 March on Washington, he led 125,000 people down Woodward Avenue in Detroit and talked about his dream of "one day right here in Detroit". Grace and James Boggs were among the organizers of the event.
"I think she came to the African-American community and movement because it spoke to her as being both anti-capitalist and anti-racist while embracing the full humanity of a people," said Grace Lee the filmmaker. "One black Detroiter told me that people were so accepting of Grace because she had brought her intellect, energy and organizing skills with her into the community at a time when black people were not seen as fully human and locked out of basic rights."
In Lee's 2014 documentary American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, the protagonist reflected on her early political activism: "I didn't think myself so much as Chinese American … because the Chinese (Asian) American movement hadn't emerged."
Yet far-reaching societal change was already afoot. By the end of the 1960s, anti-Vietnam War protests had rocked the US. Considered a fundamentally racist war by both black and Asian communities for the high death rate of black soldiers on the battlefield and the US imperialism it embodied, the war saw Zia joining her fellow high school students in walkouts and Horace Sheffield III chanting anti-war slogans in Detroit's Kennedy Square. The latter saw "people I grew up with on my block coming back in body bags".
"Young people were rising up globally," said Zia, pointing to the revolutions that had swept across Asia, Africa and Latin America. In 1955, Indonesia hosted the Bandung Conference, where representatives from 29 governments of Asian and African nations including the People's Republic of China gathered to discuss matters of common concern, decolonization and economic development.
"At the time, China talked about support for African countries in a way that resonated with the black people in America. And it had an impact on our community," said Zia.
Nowhere else was this impact more palpably felt than on the US West Coast, the landing place for most Chinese immigrants since the early 19th century. Between late 1968 and the first half of 1969, The Third World Liberation Front, a coalition of student groups representing black, Asian and Latin Americans, staged monthslong strikes on college campuses in California. These actions resulted in hundreds of arrests and, ultimately, more admissions for students from racial minorities and the establishment of ethnic studies in US universities.