Discussion with young
activists and artists,
Detroit, June 1993
40th Anniversary Celebration
of James Boggs: The American Revolution.
OSSIE DAVIS
RENAISSANCE MAN OF THE PEOPLE
By Grace Lee Boggs
Michigan Citizen, Feb. 13-19, 2005
It is hard to accept that Ossie
Davis has made his transition. He was
scheduled to come to Detroit in May to
receive an award from the Center for
Peace and Conflict Studies and to be
guest of honor at the premiere of
Professional Revolutionary: The Life
of Saul Wellman, a documentary about
the legendary political activist and
survivor of the Spanish Civil War,
World War II and McCarthyism.
We were also going to celebrate
my 90th birthday with a conversation
at the Boggs Center. I was so looking
forward to that conversation.
Like millions of others, I honor Ossie Davis for his gifts
and achievements: his majestic voice and imposing presence,
his plays and performances, his (and Ruby’s) blazing the
trail for generations of black artists and actors, his
(and Ruby’s) courage and skill in integrating their
citizenship/political/Movement lives with their
professional lives.
But I especially cherished Ossie as a black man who,
like my late husband Jimmy Boggs, had been born and
raised in the Jim Crow South in the early 20th Century,
had been part of the Progressive movement after World War II,
had refused to be intimidated by the McCarthyism and anti-
Communism of the 1950s, had marched with Martin and also
described Malcolm as "our black shining Prince" in the 1960s,
and was helping to build the new movement we now need as we
enter the 21st century.
Despite the demands on him as an actor and speaker, Ossie
always made time to do benefit performances for Detroit Summer
and to sit down with young people who wanted to know how he and
Ruby had been able to stay married for so long and/or how they
had been able to make their livings as artists and actors without
selling out.
Among the questions I wanted to explore with him:
What have blacks and the country lost because of the integration
that was achieved by the civil rights struggles? How does one deal
with the new contradictions that arise from successful struggles?
Why was it so important for blacks and the country that
blacks refused to be intimidated by McCarthyism?
What did he learn from growing up in the rural South that
might help young blacks raised in urban ghettoes?
Why did Jimmy think that "being locked in racism was
the most devastating thing that had ever happened to us" ?
At Jimmy’s Memorial celebration in 1993 Ossie described
how he had often been "born again" through encounters with Jimmy.
This is how he summed up their last meeting.
"Jimmy was ill and couldn’t come to the program. But when
I got to the house, he immediately embraced me with one hand
nd with the other gave me three pages on which. were the questions
which had to be resolved to make this an intelligent and decent
society. So Jimmy gave me my assignment, and reading the questions
and his thoughts and propositions about them, once again I was
born again. Because I came across the concept that Racism as we
had used it in our struggle was no longer valid. Racism was
indeed a very small designation of what the problems were.
What we needed to do was enlarge our frame of reference. Our
struggle indeed could only be meaningful if it was a struggle
in which everybody was fought for instead of fought over; nobody
was any greater or any less than anyone else. The struggle in its
purest sense had to be focused on elevating the lives of all the people."
It is hard to accept that Ossie
Davis has made his transition. He was
scheduled to come to Detroit in May to
receive an award from the Center for
Peace and Conflict Studies and to be
guest of honor at the premiere of
Professional Revolutionary: The Life
of Saul Wellman, a documentary about
the legendary political activist and
survivor of the Spanish Civil War,
World War II and McCarthyism.
We were also going to celebrate
my 90th birthday with a conversation
at the Boggs Center. I was so looking
forward to that conversation.
Like millions of others, I honor Ossie Davis for his gifts
and achievements: his majestic voice and imposing presence,
his plays and performances, his (and Ruby’s) blazing the
trail for generations of black artists and actors, his
(and Ruby’s) courage and skill in integrating their
citizenship/political/Movement lives with their
professional lives.
But I especially cherished Ossie as a black man who,
like my late husband Jimmy Boggs, had been born and
raised in the Jim Crow South in the early 20th Century,
had been part of the Progressive movement after World War II,
had refused to be intimidated by the McCarthyism and anti-
Communism of the 1950s, had marched with Martin and also
described Malcolm as "our black shining Prince" in the 1960s,
and was helping to build the new movement we now need as we
enter the 21st century.
Despite the demands on him as an actor and speaker, Ossie
always made time to do benefit performances for Detroit Summer
and to sit down with young people who wanted to know how he and
Ruby had been able to stay married for so long and/or how they
had been able to make their livings as artists and actors without
selling out.
Among the questions I wanted to explore with him:
What have blacks and the country lost because of the integration
that was achieved by the civil rights struggles? How does one deal
with the new contradictions that arise from successful struggles?
Why was it so important for blacks and the country that
blacks refused to be intimidated by McCarthyism?
What did he learn from growing up in the rural South that
might help young blacks raised in urban ghettoes?
Why did Jimmy think that "being locked in racism was
the most devastating thing that had ever happened to us" ?
At Jimmy’s Memorial celebration in 1993 Ossie described
how he had often been "born again" through encounters with Jimmy.
This is how he summed up their last meeting.
"Jimmy was ill and couldn’t come to the program. But when
I got to the house, he immediately embraced me with one hand
nd with the other gave me three pages on which. were the questions
which had to be resolved to make this an intelligent and decent
society. So Jimmy gave me my assignment, and reading the questions
and his thoughts and propositions about them, once again I was
born again. Because I came across the concept that Racism as we
had used it in our struggle was no longer valid. Racism was
indeed a very small designation of what the problems were.
What we needed to do was enlarge our frame of reference. Our
struggle indeed could only be meaningful if it was a struggle
in which everybody was fought for instead of fought over; nobody
was any greater or any less than anyone else. The struggle in its
purest sense had to be focused on elevating the lives of all the people."