Throwback Photo of Angela Davis (Courtesy Photo)
NOTE: This speech is part of a Black History Month assignment at NationHouse Independent Afrikan-Centered School where young people wrote speeches as a historical figure.
Before I get started, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who was associated with the movement that helped free me from jail. My name is Angela Yvonne Davis. I was born in. Birmingham, Alabama, one of the most racially segregated cities in the country. Black people were attacked in my neighborhood by the Ku Klux Klan’s bombs. That is why it was nicknamed “Dynamite Hill.” I earned a scholarship in French Literature at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. In 1960, I joined many groups including the Black Panthers.
I spent 16 months in prison because I was accused of murder and kidnapping. During my time in prison, I was worried about the American prison system. When you are in prison you do not always get the opportunity to read, write or imagine the future. In 1997 I founded Critical Resistance with Rose Braz, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and others. Critical Resistance has achieved many things against imprisonment. We stopped the California 20-year prison building boom. The California 20-year prison building boom has used $1.7 billion in state spending to build and expand 35 jails.
I was hired to teach Philosophy at the University of California in 1969. Lots of people went there because it had free education. But nowadays more money is spent on prisons than education. My mother wanted to change how things were so she inspired me to have the need to imagine the future. We can find new successful solutions to our problems because police officers are patrolling the area more often. So, it would be a better idea to find new ways than armed human beings.
Imprisonment and slavery have been a lifelong obsession in my research. Imprisonment and slavery are related because they are connected to how we are living today. In many ways, the same things are still happening to people of color. For example, in prison people of color are wrongfully accused for a crime, get longer sentences than their white counterparts, work to provide money for the state with little pay and are physically and mentally abused. In slavery Balck people were taken against their will, had to work for the whites without getting paid for it and were physically and mentally abused, meaning slavery is not yet abolished.
There are many people that just allow slavery to happen and do not care enough about it. A quote I have said was “I am no longer accepting things I cannot change. I’m changing the things I cannot accept.” This quote means to me that you cannot change a white supremacist mindset and opinion, but you can stop their actions of oppressing African people.
Military industrial complexes and imprisonment industrial complexes are also related because there are a lot of people that join the military to stay away from imprisonment. Race matters and the amount of people in prisons are people of color. It is hard for a lot of people to afford to get mental healthcare and that is why some people are in jail today because they have emotional and mental problems. Therefore, I agree that we need to encourage each other to use our knowledge and strategic planning with action to make the world a better place for all Black people.
My name is Angela Yvonne Davis. Thank you for listening to my speech.
Angela Davis is a political activist, philosopher, scholar, and author. She was born January 26 1944 in Birmingham Alabama. Angela Davis was the daughter of two teachers and traveled to New York to finish high school. She was involved with the Soledad Brothers Defense Committee, a group that collected donations to support the three men that were accused of killing a white prison guard. Angela Davis is still alive to this day and teaches philosophy at the University of California.
The Watoto Speak! 