Students perform at last year's Grace Lee Boggs Heritage Breakfast. This year's event is set for Thursday, May 9. All members of the university community are welcome to attend. (Image courtesy of Maria Hench)
On Thursday, May 9, DePaul will host the annual Grace Lee Boggs Heritage Breakfast. This second annual gathering celebrates the cultural heritage of the Asian/Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, activists for social justice, and the life and legacy of Grace Lee Boggs. The event, part of the President’s Signature series, is free and open to DePaul students, staff, faculty and alumni.
RSVPs are requested.
This year, we are honored to have Tuyet Le serve as our keynote speaker. For more than 18 years, Tuyet Le led Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Chicago (Advancing Justice | Chicago) as its executive director. Established in 1992, Advancing Justice | Chicago is a pan-Asian, not-for-profit organization that builds power through collective advocacy and organizing to achieve racial equity.
The breakfast will also feature remarks and reflections from Acting Provost Salma Ghanem and SGA Senator Alyssa Isberto, as well as performances by students of the School of Music and The Theatre School.
After a vote by the community at last year’s breakfast, the annual gathering was named after Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015), a Chinese American philosopher, author and activist who spent most of her life advocating for civil rights and labor rights. Her activism began in Chicago, where she joined the movement for tenants’ rights, and she soon poured herself into other causes and joined the 1941 March on Washington. In 1953, Lee married activist James Boggs and moved to Detroit, where she fostered Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of “beloved communities,” striving for racial and economic justice through nonconfrontational methods. She founded food cooperatives and community groups to support the elderly, organize unemployed workers and fight utility shut-offs. She devised tactics to combat crime, and in columns for a local weekly newspaper, she promoted civic reforms. In 1992, she co-founded Detroit Summer, a youth program that still draws volunteers from all over the country to repair homes, paint murals, organize music festivals and turn vacant lots into community gardens.
2019 Grace Lee Boggs Heritage Breakfast
Thursday, May 9
10 a.m.
Cortelyou Commons