Rehearsing the Future: The Thought and Practice of James and Grace Lee Boggs

Michael Doan, Myrtle Denice-Thompson

James and Grace Lee Boggs were two of the most influential American radical thinkers of the twentieth century. Over the course of more than forty years of partnership and participation in labor, civil rights, Black Power, anticolonial, and feminist movements, they articulated a revolutionary philosophy called “dialectical humanism.” Rejecting state socialism and traditional Marxism, dialectical humanism instead attributes social change to the conscious, collective activity of people engaged in place-based organizing with a view to transforming everyday life. In this session, the presenters (both members of the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership) introduce a newly released book, Rehearsing the Future: The Thought and Practice of James and Grace Lee Boggs (AK Press, 2026), which lays out the intellectual history of dialectical humanism, the far-reaching theory and practice that continues to inspire visionary organizing and emergent strategy around the world.