Imagine it is 2030. A youngster asks you, What was is like back then at the turn of the century? What will you say about capital punishment, the drug war, guns or why more money was spent on prisons than education? What will you say about racism, the criminal justice system and the vast discrepancies in sentencing? What will you say about gender and class bias and the huge income and wealth gap between the rich and the poor? What will you say?

Angela Davis
Angela Davis is one of the iconic figures of this era. She was acquitted of conspiracy charges in 1972 after one of the most famous trials in U.S. history. She went on to become an internationally regarded scholar and writer. She is the author of many books, including "Women, Culture and Politics" and "Blues Legacies and Black Feminism." Her latest is, "Abolition Democracy." Governor Ronald Reagan of California vowed when he fired her from her position at UCLA that she would never again teach in the state system. Today, she is a tenured professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz.