http://www.kccall.com/article.cfm?articleid=4111
Eric L. Wesson
Feb 1, 2010
American socialist, political activist and retired UCLA professor,
Ms. Angela Davis, was in Kansas City on Friday, Jan. 22, at UMKC as
the featured speaker for their second annual Martin Luther King Jr.
celebration.
Ms. Davis covered a wide variety of subjects in her two-hour
presentation from Dr. King, to capitalism, to Haiti, to President
Obama to the prison industrial complex and even touched on the rights
of gays and lesbians and same sex marriage.
However, judging by the crowds reaction, her strongest point was
clearly the history of the Civil Rights movement and her role as a activist.
"As a person who came into my own during the Civil Rights era I can
say that the impression that was given of that era is inaccurate,"
Ms. Davis said.
"The Civil Rights era was about full citizenship certainly but that
is not all that was needed for a person to be free. The movement was
actually the Freedom Movement. The Freedom Movement, which was often
called the Movement, was far deeper than the rights of citizenship," she said.
"See, we believe that because we have a black man in the White House
that it cancels out the hundreds of thousands black men in the 'big
house'," Ms. Davis said.
"It never occurred to me why there wouldn't be a black man in the
White House because there were a lot of black people who could have
been elected that I wouldn't have been excited about either. What
excited me was that he was a black man who identified with the
struggle. He understands the struggle," she said.
"For some reason we feel that we can only have it either or. We
should be able to support him and criticize him. We must put pressure
on him to do the right thing and help him remember the struggle," Ms.
Davis stated.
Ms. Davis, 66, told the audience that the movement which propelled
Dr. King to the forefront was started by women because women were the
ones who rode the buses.
"Who created the movement that propelled Dr. King? Black women
because black women were the ones who rode the bus and organized the
movement. They were the ones who worked in domestic jobs and needed
the buses. Rosa Parks was just one of many black women who had been
arrested for not moving from her seat. I remember the announcements
that read, 'another black woman has been arrested'. That meant that
other women had been arrested in the past," she said.
"Dr. King's vision was for economic freedom as well as civic freedom.
Dr. King told us about the mountain top experience in his speech, but
he never told us what he saw," she stated.
"Freedom should not be a state in which we yearn. It is something
that we should have. Freedom became the struggle to remake our lives
and communities," Ms. Davis concluded.
In the 1970s, she was a target of COINTELPRO, tried and acquitted of
suspected involvement in the Soledad brothers' August 1970 abduction
and murder of Judge Harold Haley in Marin County, California.
On August 7, 1970, Superior Court Judge Harold Haley was abducted
from his Marin County, California, courtroom and murdered during an
effort to free a convict.
The firearms used in the attack were purchased in Davis's name,
including the shotgun used to kill Haley, which had been purchased
only two days prior and sawed-off.
The California warrant issued for Davis charged her as an accomplice
to conspiracy, kidnapping, and homicide. On August 18, 1970, Ms.
Davis became the third woman and the 309th person to appear on the
FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List.
Ms. Davis fled California and evaded the police for more than two
months before being captured in New York City. While being held in
the Women's Detention Center in New York City, she was initially
segregated from the general population, but with the help of her
legal team soon obtained a Federal court order to get out of the
segregated area.
Her bail was posted by Rodger McAfee, a farmer from Caruthers,
California. Portions of her legal defense expenses were paid for by
the Presbyterian church.
In 1972, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. The mere fact
that she owned the guns used in the crime was not sufficient to
establish her responsibility for the plot.
Ms. Davis was twice a candidate for Vice President on the Communist
Party USA ticket during the Reagan era.
Since moving in the early 1990s from communism to reformism she has
identified herself as a democratic socialist.
Ms. Davis is the founder of Critical Resistance, an organization
working to abolish what it calls the prison-industrial complex.
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