How To Do Activism Now: Grace Lee Boggs and Rosa Clemente

By Carla Murphy Sep 05, 2014

Lifelong activists Grace Lee Boggs, 99, and Rosa Clemente, 42, came together on MSNBC’s Reid Report for an intergenerational discussion on how they became activists–and what sustains them today. In Clemente I hear echoes of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ recent essay on the value of "true education." She also offers an accessible entry point for folks searching for ways to contribute, now: 

Activism can happen with 5,000 people or it can happen when you’re walking home and you see police putting three black kids against the wall. Are you gonna keep walking home? Or are you gonna stand there? Are you gonna watch? Are you gonna at least be a witness to what’s happening?

Boggs, a living memorial to many of the 20th century’s defining chapters, believes she is witnessing a second American revolution as powerful as the first.

Watch these two women, one Asian-American and the other Afro-Latina, above on Reid Report. How did you become an activist?