Grace Lee Boggs invited Tony & I to come to Detroit Summer to help out with designing a mural in June 2000. During the week we participated in Detroit Summer, gave a lecture at University of Detroit-Mercy about community art/education, did gardening, scraped the wall, and brainstormed about design ideas for the mural. A week later, we left Detroit with a 5 inch pencil-drawn sketch, and a 2 story high freshly-scraped wall (33 feet wide X 23' 8" high).

The Detroit Summer youth, all well-seasoned muralists wanted to include their vision for what Detroit can be, with kids biking along the Detroit River, as well as issues such as casinos, in$inerator$, and fighting evil. The world in the hand was taken from a publication by Jimmy Boggs. Also, in the bottom corner are the watching eyes of elders, Grace Lee Boggs, Jimmy Boggs, and Freddy Paine, founders of Detroit Summer.

Above are some photos that were taken in March 2001, the following Spring when Jenni went to Detroit with Great Leap. Note the snow on the ground. The mural is located in the Cass Corridor, 3611 Cass Avenue, on the side of the Detroit Summer youth space, and adjacent to the Cass Corridor Neighborhood Development Corporation.

See my Detroit Summer article, which is linked to the Great Leap To All Relations page. Once we get a scanner, I will put up more photos from Detroit on this page. For now, I've put up the images we have.

- Jenni


Other related links:

Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership
Detroit Summer website


Updated: 12/31/01