Grace Lee Boggs will offer her views as Linus Pauling speaker

She counts among her friends such famous activists as Malcolm X, Ossie Davis and Linus Pauling. But despite being a revolutionary for more than 70 years, Grace Lee Boggs is not a name that many immediately recognize or associate with the civil-rights movement.

But her activism has led to many changes and inspired countless other fighters for social justice, and Thursday night, she'll be sharing her views on a different approach to citizenship as part of the 25th annual Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Memorial Lecture on World Peace.

Because of her age - Lee Boggs is 92 - she rarely travels. In fact, when lecture organizer Dick Clinton, professor emeritus of political science at Oregon State University, first contacted the Boggs Center in Detroit, his invitation was declined by her staff. But Lee Boggs herself wrote Clinton the next day, after learning the lecture was associated with her old friend Linus Pauling. She accepted the invitation.

"I felt Linus's personal warmth was still radiating somewhere," Clinton said.

Clinton said that Lee Boggs is a perfect example of the kind of person young people should learn from.

"She embodies what we need, someone who has a passion for justice," he said. "She has such grace in pursuing that passion. She is articulate and calm and compassionate."

As a child, Lee Boggs learned first hand the effects of prejudice, as her Chinese father was barred from purchasing property in the United States.

Despite the challenges of growing up as an Asian American woman in the early 20th century, Lee Boggs went on to earn a bachelor of arts from Barnard College and a doctorate of philosophy from Bryn Mawr in 1940.

In her 20s, Lee Boggs began to actively participate in radical politics, focusing on the treatment of African Americans.

She said that as a Chinese American woman, she couldn't even get a job in a department store, let alone at a university, and activism seemed a natural direction to take her education.

After graduating from college, she moved from New York City to Detroit, and met the man who would become her work and life partner for 40 years. James Boggs, an African American author and theoretician, and Lee Boggs bonded over their passion for justice and eventually married.

The couple co-authored numerous books on activism, as well as essays, and she continues to write and speak on social-justice issues.

She focuses especially on children and the education system, which she says teaches passivity and creates a generation of criminals and addicts, rather than empowering and elevating children to becoming agents of change.

"She is a voice of hope in times like these," Clinton said, "and has the wisdom to keep struggling."

IF YOU GO

The Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Memorial Lecture on World Peace is at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the LaSells Stewart Center on campus. 92-year-old social justice activist Grace Lee Boggs speaks on "A New Concept of Citizenship." The event is free.