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Activist’s struggle continues

By Andrew Flohr-Spence
spencand@mscd.edu

Her life is a story of struggle and resilience.

Angela Davis was born in Birmingham, Ala. of 1944. She attended segregated schools in the Jim Crow-era South.

Davis then studied at Brandeis University and the Sorbonne in Paris, receiving a Ph.D. in philosophy from East German Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1969, she was fired from her teaching job at the University of California by former Gov. Ronald Reagan for being a member of the Communist Party.

She joined the Black Panthers and was arrested in New York after evading capture for two months while on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted fugitive list. After 18 months in jail, she was acquitted in 1972 on charges of conspiracy, kidnapping and homicide.

She twice ran for president of the United States as the Communist Party candidate.

Davis’ life is the story of the struggle for civil rights.

That story, Davis told the overflow crowd on Jan. 21 in the Tivoli Turnhalle, led her to her current focus: the American prison system as part of the civil rights struggle.

“The institution of the prison has claimed a place at the very core, at the very heart, of black history,” said Davis, who has written two books criticizing the American penal system. Prisons have also become a constant theme in the lives of Chicanos and oppressed and marginalized people all around the world, she said. Davis urged Americans to get rid of the current prison system, which she said was racist, inhumane and comparable to “a new slavery.”

Opened by dancers from Cleo Parker Robinson’s studio with excerpts from their upcoming show, the speech was one of the main events of the 25th Annual Black World Conference, an event sponsored jointly by Metro’s African and African-American Studies department and the Chicano studies department in celebration of Black History Month.

Davis spoke on this year’s theme, “200 Years of Negotiating Freedom.”

“What has that freedom meant to the black world? ” she asked. “Black History Month seems to have become an occasion to generate profit.”

She cited advertisements by card companies and department stores urging people to celebrate Black History Month by buying their products.

“It indicates the impact that global capitalism has had on our lives, and the conditions of neo-liberalism under which we live and think, mean that capitalism has insinuated itself into our very desires and our dreams and our very ways of thinking of ourselves,” Davis said. “We commodify ourselves when we talk about how to market ourselves.”

Davis’ story impressed many who attended her speech.

“Her activism has been inspirational to me and to many other black woman also,” UCD communications major Koraya Robinson said. She added that she learned what African- Americans have contributed to history and that she also attended the event because she is interested in becoming an activist organizer much like Davis. “I’m drawn to it because of my passion for it and Angela Davis is very inspiring to me.”

“Wow,” Metro student Hashim Coats said. “I have always wished I could have been alive in the ‘60s and in the Black Panthers, (Angela Davis) is one of my icons.”

Coats is a member of several organizations for blacks, including Alpha Phi Alpha, the Black Student Alliance, and a new group starting this semester, The Richness of Our Traditional Selves, or ROOTS. He said he came to the event to gain ideas for his own career as an activist. “I think some of the tactics used in the ‘60s will still work and be relevant today.”

Political science professor Robert Hazan said Davis, while perhaps a lesser-known name than Malcolm X or Martin Luther King Jr., is one of the great influential leaders of the civil rights movement.

“She represents the spirit of struggle, of the incessant struggle of individuals to live better lives,” Hazan said. “She represents the struggle for women’s rights, for the rights of African- Americans and the rights of all people to live in peace.”