Detroit's local foods movement has been a catalyst in the [r]evolution that is rebirthing Detroit as a City of Hope. The city's early devastation by deindustrialization provided us with the space and place to begin anew. It also challenged us to make a paradigm shift in our thinking about social justice.
Our [r]evolution began in the 1980s with African-American elders. Raised in the South, these "Gardening Angels" could see Detroit's vacant lots not as blight but as opportunities to grow our own food and also help urban youth understand the importance of self-reliance.
In 1988, Coleman Young, Detroit's first black mayor, unwittingly accelerated the process. Stuck in the old social democratic paradigm, in which government stimulus programs or a "New Deal" are seen as the only methods of reviving communities, he proposed a casino industry to create 50,000 jobs to reduce the crime that had made Detroit the world's "murder capital." When we organized Detroiters Uniting to defeat him, he challenged us to come up with an alternative.
In response, we founded Detroit Summer, a multicultural/intergenerational youth program/movement to rebuild, redefine and respirit Detroit from the ground up. Detroit Summer involved young people with elders in planting community gardens and with community residents in painting public murals. This reconnection with earth and community unleashed their imaginations to create their own bike programs for transportation and poetry workshops to express their new thoughts.
Detroit Summer also triggered the Detroit Agricultural Network. Today DAN includes more than 700 community gardens, lovingly cultivated by Detroiters of all ages, walks of life and ethnicities who share information on resources and how to preserve and market produce at quarterly potlucks and cluster centers.
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Detroit's 'Quiet Revolution' : Local Foods Movement Takes Root
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By Grace Lee Boggs
The Nation, September 2009
Straight to the Source
