Angela Davis is still passionate about racial equality, women’s rights, and political issues. And – at 68 – she’s still speaking out for her beliefs.
The University invited the activist, author, and University of California Santa Cruz professor emerita to be its James Farmer Visiting Lecturer and keynote speaker for the UMW Black History Month celebration.
Four decades ago, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover put Davis on the bureau’s “Ten Most Wanted” list related to charges of murder, kidnapping, and criminal conspiracy. The daughter of Alabama schoolteachers, Davis served 18 months in prison before a jury acquitted her. She twice was a U.S. vice presidential candidate on the Communist Party ticket.
Today, Davis’ scholarly work focuses on incarceration and criminalization of the most impoverished and discriminated against. She advocates against what she calls the prison-industrial complex.
Other Black History month events included the steel drum music of Ewabo, exhibits, film discussions, and presentations.
Flanking Davis’ Feb. 15 talk were Great Lives lectures highlighting baseball legend Jackie Robinson and Richard and Mildred Loving, a Caroline County, Va., couple who helped strike down state statutes against mixed-race marriage. In 1959, the white husband and black wife were convicted of violating a Virginia statute banning their legal marriage, performed in Washington, D.C. Speaking at the lecture were Bernard Cohen, the ACLU lawyer who successfully argued Loving v. Virginia before the U.S. Supreme Court, and Fredericksburg-area resident Peggy Fortune, daughter of the Lovings.
A step show, Gospelfest, UMW Faculty Jazz Ensemble performance, and an exhibit of UMW Libraries’ resources on African-American history and culture rounded out Black History Month.
“Perhaps one day,” Davis said, “we can say that we are celebrating black history 12 months out of every year.”