This article can be found in YES! Magazine...
Detroit is known for its decay, violence, and gas-guzzling cars. With thousands of activists coming to town, will it also become known as a source of hope?
by Sarah van Gelder
Detroit was not an accidental choice for the US Social Forum (USSF). Take a look at the decaying Packard Plant or at boarded-up homes and small businesses, and you'd say this city is dying. Less well known is that it is a city in the midst of a rebirth from the bottom up, and the organizers knew this well when they chose Detroit for the second USSF.
“Detroit embodies both the problem and potential for solutions,” says Maureen Taylor, USSF staff coordinator. “We believe the Social Forum process will stimulate some hope for the people of Detroit and help the people turn this city around.” Organizers expect 15,000 to 25,000 people to arrive from around the country for the forum. And while the attention focused on Detroit may help turn the city around, Detroit’s bottom-up style of activism may also open up new ideas and possibilities for those visiting from around the country.
*******************
We’re working to build something that is creative and new in the city. This movement, unlike movements of the past, is not based on one sex, one race, one ideological frame. It’s based on love and appreciation, and transformation of humanity. ~ Ron Scott, a founder some decades ago of a Detroit chapter of the Black Panther Party who today heads up the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality
I can’t begin to tell you how much Detroit means symbolically worldwide and nationally. Detroit was once the national and international symbol of the miracles of industrialization and then became the national and international symbol of devastation of deindustrialization. Now it is becoming the national and international symbol of a new way of living - of great transformation. ~ Grace Boggs, writer and lifelong activist whose career spans more than 60 years
No comments:
Post a Comment