Place-Based, Community-First Philosophic Activism

when i originally opened the email inviting me to be a Coss Dialogue respondent for the 2025 Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy (SAAP) conference, I was adamant that I would say no (. . . a hard skill I am working on as I more intentionally aim to align the relationships, communities, and places that I value with the limited time we are allotted in life). But SAAP is one of those communities I deeply value. So, despite the temptation to ignore and then politely decline the invitation, I clicked . . . And I read . . . And then, inspired, despite my mid-semester apathy and resistance, I started doing research of my own about the 2025 Coss Speaker, Dominic Moulden. I read about his participatory action research, framework for community organizing, commitment to uncovering hidden histories, and the philosophic questions driving his efforts to address systemic racism, educational disparities, and histories of exclusion across DC neighborhoods. . . . And I was honored to say yes.Moulden, I learned, is a founding member of the NGO Organizing Neighborhood Equity (ONE DC), a community-led organization harnessing participatory democratic design strategies that empower residents to shape their place. ONE DC has, for example, increased home ownership in the community, documented untold stories and histories, generated centers for health and wellness, cultivated intergenerational educational leadership programs, and so much more (Hyra and Moulden).1 A quick review of their website shows they take a community-first, historically situated approach to place-making. As Moulden said in his 2018 Washington Post Op Ed, what is most important is “ensuring that neighborhood residents affected by community development initiatives are engaged at all stages” (Moulden et al.; emphasis added).Their approach to place-making is also philosophically grounded and intentionally holistic. They seek to care for the whole person, and they maintain a commitment to the power of questioning. As Moulden says, ONE DC is a place where “philosophy and organizing comes together” through “the questioning.” And one of the primary questions driving their work is: “Who has a right to the city?”2 In addressing this question, they have worked in partnership with Shaw residents to create physical programs, shape policies, generate community resources, build coalitions, and shift mindsets. This community-first, holistic approach to place-making is likely to be noteworthy to readers of The Pluralist for two reasons: (1) For its contrast with the approach government and universities take to (i) generating and disseminating knowledge and (ii) how they leverage power in shaping our places (Holmes; Lake and Wendland; Yemini et al.).(2) For its resonance with the lifetime work of philosophic activists like Jane Addams and Grace Lee Boggs.Governmental organizations and institutions of higher education too often exact from, create for, and disseminate knowledge and resources to our communities without coming to know or honor the diverse histories, values, assets, and knowledges embedded within those communities. The dominant structures, policies, processes, and cultures of these institutions perpetuate cycles of exclusion and harm (Holmes); and since we exist within them (are a part of them), we also tend toward perpetuating these cycles within our own work (Lake and Thompson). In contrast, Moulden, Boggs, and Addams managed to disrupt many of these cycles, generating instead cycles of liberation.The parallels between their strategies are also particularly noteworthy given the differences in their time periods, locations, and social identities. Addams, born in 1860, was a white, educated, relatively wealthy queer woman. Instead of living the domestic life prescribed for women of her time, Addams designed her own life: becoming a public intellectual, a movement activist, and so much more. Boggs was the daughter of Chinese immigrant parents. She grew up in a white, middle-class Rhode Island community in the 1920s and completed a PhD in Philosophy at a time when women were not allowed to hold an academic position. Across her lifetime, she held a diverse array of jobs in order to sustain her commitment to philosophic activism. As an African American male born in Baltimore in the middle of the twentieth century, Moulden completed a BA in Philosophy and a graduate degree in Theological Studies. He has been a movement activist for over three decades. As adults, they each transitioned to different major US cities: Addams to Chicago in 1889, Boggs to Detroit in 1953, and Moulden to Washington, DC, in 1986. Despite the differences in their places, time periods, and social identities, there are staggering parallels in their lives and their approach to place-making.All three resituated themselves within historic neighborhoods. All three began by listening “closely to the grass roots for new questions that require new paradigms” (Boggs 46). All three sought to visualize and honor the diverse histories of their communities, engaging in various forms of dialogue and counter-storytelling (i.e., visualizing stories with and from historically marginalized communities). All three leveraged relational power to build coalitions and shift social systems.3 All three also created unique boundary-spanning organizations (physical places for coalition building): Addams through Hull House; Boggs through the Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership; and Dominic through ONE DC. All three reshaped social structures and processes so they were more inclusive and responsive to the people within them.Through these strategies, Addams and Hull House had a powerful impact on labor laws, immigrant protection policies, food practices, education, and so much more (Addams; Fischer). Boggs became a central catalyst for the Black Power and Asian American movements, labor rights, and women's rights movements. Indeed, her biographer wrote that it was Boggs's efforts in Detroit that laid the theoretical and infrastructural foundation for the Black Power movement of the 1960s (Ward 1–2). The Boggs Center has also played a pivotal role in Detroit, spearheading equitable housing, place-based education, and food justice opportunities across the local and global community (Boggs; Boggs and Kurashige). Moulden and ONE DC have transformed structural injustices in the Shaw community around housing, health, education, and more. They each began by cultivating trust, sharing place-based counter-stories, and thereby “building community-based knowledge to produce insights to make a more just city” (Hyra et al. 427).In various ways, I have spent the last two decades studying and adapting many of these strategies. I was originally inspired by the possibilities of a relational and placed philosophic activism in Judy Whipps's 2003 undergraduate seminar on Jane Addams. Then, again, in 2015—just before Grace Lee Boggs passed away—I had the chance to visit the Boggs Center in Detroit. The Boggs Center further spurred and renewed my commitment to place-based, relational living and learning, prompting me to explore opportunities to support or create boundary-spanning organizational places.I found that opportunity in the directorship of the Center for Design Thinking at Elon University. The Center—with a mission to help people “design life differently”—gave me a space and time to listen to diverse members of my communities and develop relationships across divides, thus opening avenues for forming what became the Power + Place Collaborative in my county (Lake et al.). The Collaborative is a place-based, relational, and action-oriented community-education partnership that includes diverse community centers, the parks and recreation department, the public libraries and schools, and the university. With a commitment to examining the power-laden place-making process and creating spaces of understanding, healing, and action, the Collaborative has collected and shares oral histories from diverse community members. Since 2019, these stories have shifted how knowledge is being created and shared. They act as counter-stories, exploring critical issues of history, race, discrimination, segregation, community leadership, and activism. The stories and storytellers have also become a part of the local history through new curriculum at our local schools and youth summer camps, and they have been openly archived on the Omeka and North Carolina Digital Library site, embedded in the local parks, and placed as story murals and “StoryWalks” at local coffee shops, restaurants, and nonprofits.I believe a review of Moulden's, Boggs's, and Addams's life work and my own experience spotlights powerful strategies for those of us interested in cultivating participatory place-making opportunities in our communities. I have found their strategies compelling not only for their “outputs” (for the tangible changes in systems, policies, and processes that can emerge), but also for those less tangible transformations: the cultivation of deep and meaningful relationships across systemic divides, the shifting of power, and the transformation in beliefs.