Activist speaks to packed audience (Angela Davis @ Vanderbilt)

Lecture part of Black History Month celebration.

by Stacia Harrison
February 23, 2005

Angela Davis is not your average activist and is known for her less than average lifestyle. Her membership in the Communist Party USA and the Black Panthers cost her a teaching position at UCLA in 1969. She was on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted list in the 1970s and served 16 months in prison on charges that she allegedly supplied the gun used in a prison killing. Davis later was acquitted of this charge in 1972 during one of the most famous trials that afforded her international support from as far as Sri Lanka and the former Soviet Union. <snip>

She also pointed out the role that racism has within the judicial system and the economy. "There is no coincidence that 70 percent or more of the people who are incarcerated are people of color. The underlying racism is possibly more damaging (because) the economy is still structured by racist hierarchy," Davis said. <snip>

"The global reputation of the U.S. democracy is totally declining," Davis said. "They don't want to be associated with the U.S. drive for empire ... the so-called exportation of democracy is more about privatization." <snip>

While the audience clapped and cheered for the majority of Davis' talk, the quiet came when she mentioned the issue of same-sex marriage. There was silence and fidgeting and some laughing in regard to her statement that the United States, as a capitalist country, should be promoting any kind of marriage or partnership, because marriage is an economic institution. <snip>

http://www.vanderbilthustler.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/02/23/421c1f8bcdb78