Interview with Angela Davis

This video from the USA is called Angela Davis lecture at U[niversity] of O[regon].

With her towering afro and radical rhetoric, Angela Davis was one of the iconic faces of black politics in 1970s America. She talks to Gary Younge about Barack Obama [see also here], the racism of the black middle class, and how it feels to be remembered as a hairdo …

For all her many achievements over the past 37 years, Angela Davis remains, for many, a symbol frozen in time. The time was 1970. It marked the end of a tumultuous era of civil rights struggle that culminated in the assassination of two of black America’s most renowned leaders – Martin Luther King [see also here] and Malcolm X. A period of peaceful demonstrations for integration in the rural south had been followed by a spate of violent disturbances in the urban north. The focus had shifted from integration to black power; the influences from Gandhi and the Bible to Mao and Marxism. In 1967, Aretha Franklin called for “r-e-s-p-e-c-t“; by 1970, the anthem was Edwin Starr’s War.

The symbol was resistance. Smart, handsome, eloquent, fearless and stylish, Davis strode the political stage with her fist raised high and her afro combed even higher. A rebel and a revolutionary. A silhouette for summerwear. Radical and chic like Che – except that she has lived to see her political resistance transfer into popular culture.

See also here.

Former Black Panther Details Brutal Police Torture to Extract Confession in 1971 Murder Case: here.

Critique of ‘Art on the Frontline’ by Angela Davis: here.

Angela Davis 2016 interview: here.

15 thoughts on “Interview with Angela Davis”

FORTY YEARS ON-AND STILL DREAMING !

Forty years ago, when Martin Luther King made his landmark speech: “I HAVE A DREAM”, during the famous March on Washington on 28th August 1963, its echo is still haunting the american society in particular and the progressive world in general. The truth is that black americans are still dreaming now, facing the dire realities of their life fraught with abject inequalities, discrimination, unemployment, jail, tortures and other human rights violations, intimidation and humiliation.

Martin Luther King used his non-violent stance as weapon to struggle for civil rights as it happened to be a long tradition of non-violent resistance to racism in the United States. By virtue of this non-violent action, he had been physically and mentally assaulted from the top american authorities to their proxies and put in jail. He concentrated his struggle on helping those suffering from poverty since he saw the link between poverty, civil rights, race and economic issues and use of force. In this connection, his opposition to the Vietnam war had made him the serious threat to the policy of the american administration. This leads to the striking similarity between the war in Iraq and Vietnam war both conducted by the United States. Martin Luther King had make it crystal clear that:” Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when in became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population…So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools.” Obviously, the remark applies to Afghanistan in this regard.

Today, the opposition to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by the American citizens and the world at large, reflects the very conviction manifested by Martin Luther King during his lifetime. Today, the struggle against the forces of injustice is to be waged. The big question is, Is the American administration get tired of its wars in these countries as King said then that” There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunshine of life” and the tremendous devastations caused by these wars”… As he advocated the unity of the Americans “to get many of the things that they not only desire but also justly deserve”, the world should share this view that in the United States “ There live a race people, black people, fleecy locks and black complexion, of people who have the moral courage to stand up for their rights, and thereby, they inject a new meaning into the veins of history and of civilization”.

Sadly, notwihstanding these good pronouncements, many black Americans are still dreaming, yet, a dream deeply rooted for a brighter life in the future.

Permanent Secretariat
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Wednesday 10th January 2016

posted by Morning Star in World

SPANISH prison authorities have denied veteran US campaigner and former political prisoner Angela Davis access to jailed Basque separatist leader Arnaldo Otegi.

Ms Davis ttempted to visit Mr Otegi, secretary-general of the Basque socialist Sortu (Create) party, at Logrono prison on Sunday.

Despite having submitted a legal request in December, Ms Davis was refused entry by Spanish military police.
Mr Otegi is serving a six-and-a-half-year sentence for trying to rebuild banned Basque separatist party Batasuna. He has also been tried for glorifying terrorism by comparing a jailed member of armed group ETA to Nelson Mandela.

Founded in 2011, Sortu renounces violence and argues only for an independent Basque country within the European Union. It was briefly banned from contesting elections that year on the grounds that it was the eighth iteration of Batasuna — prompting the formation of another party, Bildu (Gathering).

http://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-1dd1-Spain-Campaigner-Davis-denied-visit-to-jailed-Basque-leader#.Vrt4O-ZrgdU

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