Angela Davis Visits U of M Flint (video)

Angela Davis Visits U of M Flint (video)
(Crystal A. Proxmire, Feb. 20, 2015)
Human rights advocate Angela Davis visited the University of Michigan Flint Thursday for both a public lecture and a more intimate question and answer session with students. Davis is known worldwide for her efforts to fight oppression, particularly her protest actions in the sixties as part of the Black Panthers and the Communist Party.
Speaking to a theatre full of students, teachers and visitors, Davis ran down a list that was important to her. “We have to end economic injustice, war, destruction of the environment, anti-Muslim discrimination, anti-Semitism, gender violence, homophobia, ableism, and we need access to good, organic, non-GMO food and free education.”
Davis had spent over a year in prison awaiting trial for her alleged role in a plan to help fellow black panthers escape from a prison where African Americans were routinely beaten and at times killed by white guards and inmates in 1970. She was tried and found not guilty, but her co-defendant remains jailed to this day.
“Forty years ago, we never could have imagined struggling for the same issues,” Davis said. She had been traveling in Europe when the Grand Jury decision came from Ferguson, MO. “People all over the world showed solidarity.” She read a list of senseless deaths of black citizens, including Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Rashida McBride. The list was long, and though these names have brought racially-charged violence back into the public eye, Davis noted that ever since slavery there has been systematic violence against black people.
One concept Davis spoke on was that the criminal justice system came eventually to fill in where lynching and other violence left off. She spoke of a recently released report that sought to share the history of what life, and death, was like for black people in the era between slavery and the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s.
The Equal Justice Initiate studied 4,000 lynchings in 12 southern states, and concluded that while there are still monuments to Klu Klux Klan members and Civil War generals, there is little to honor the black men and women murdered. The report noted that history remembers the migration north as one of people looking for work, when in reality people came north to flee the terror of constant violence.
Students asked Davis to speak on the role of public education in sending young people into the criminal justice system so young, the harm caused by an American-centric worldview, and about the role of black women in society.
Davis’ organization Critical Resistance advocates for education and prison reform.  In particular the way schools set children up for failure bother the 71-year-old activist.  She said the education system as it is now needs to be scrapped so society can start fresh.  She called for education that encourages kids to “take pleasure in learning,” allows them to be themselves, explore their emotions, and “have a tantrum” once in a while.  “Education should allow kids to be different,” she said, adding that children are supposed to run around, not sit still at a desk all day. She also criticized the justice system for being more about prevention than about understanding crime and preventing it.
Watch video of the student question and answer session below:

Check out this article on a previous visit by Angela Davis to Detroit in 2015:  https://oaklandcounty115.com/2012/11/05/beyond-ferndale-angela-davis-visits-detroit-video/
You can find other noteworthy interviews and speeches at https://oaklandcounty115.com/category/blogs/important-interviews/.
NOTE:  The oc115 got video of the main speech, but had audio issues.  If you come across footage from the theatre, please contact editor@oc115.com so we can see about adding it.  Thanks!

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