79: Harry Boyte: Democracy & Imagination

Throughout his career, activist, organizer, educator, and author Harry Boyte. has asked a simple, but obviously challenging question: How can we make democracy an everyday practice for everyone? Given the warnings about the end of democracy, our discussion about role of culture in the labor and civil rights movements, and the inseparable nature of imagination and democracy is timely, to say the least. BIOHarry C. Boyte is a co-founder with Marie Ström of the Public Work Academy and Senior Scholar of Public Work Philosophy, both at Augsburg University. He also founded the international youth civic education initiative Public Achievement and the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the University of Minnesota, now merged into the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg University. Boyte’s book, Awakening Democracy through Public Work, Vanderbilt University Press 2018, recounts lessons from more than 25 years of revitalizing the civic purposes of K-12, higher education, professions, and other settings. In the 1960s, Boyte was a Field Secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization headed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and subsequently was a community and labor organizer in the South. Boyte has authored ten other books on democracy, citizenship, and community organizing and his articles and essays have appeared in more than 150 publications including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Political Theory, Chronicle of Higher Education, Policy Review, Dissent, and the Nation. Notable MentionsPart One: Free SpacesPublic AchievementSabo Center for Democracy and CitizenshipAwakening Democracy Through Public Work, Harry Boyte Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)Judge William HastieSCLC - Citizenship SchoolsBrown V. Board of Education The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and The Politics of The American Way, Larry MayCultural Front, Michael DenningNixon/Khrushchev Kitchen DebateInstitute for Public Life and WorkThird Way Civics: A Cultural Pluralist view of American Democracy and History Trygve Throntveit,Creative Community Leadership, UMass AmherstPart Two: CitizensArtist Proof Studio, South Africa,Kim BermanArt and Upheaval, William ClevelandThe Extended Mind, Annie Murphy PaulThe Capacity to Aspire, Arjun AppaduraiHighlander (Research and Education Center)Dorothy Cotton,Septima Clark,Ella BakerLiteracy Project Documentary, You Got to Move.Bernice RobinsonScandinavian Folk SchoolsTerry Pettus Part Three: “These don't seem like such bad kids.”Beyond the War Metaphor, Harry BoyteBuilding America: The Democratic Promise of Public Work,  Harry Boyte, Nancy Kari Public Achievement in Fridley: Transforming Special Education Part Four: The Dignity and Value of WorkThe Dignity of Labor, Martin Luther KingA New Deal for the Arts ExhibitionRoosevelt Memorial, George SegalBehind the Magic Curtain by T. K. Thorn