Beginnings: Movements of Possibility
In times of crisis one can simultaneously see danger and opportunity. Today there is nostalgia for an imagined past and a desire to recreate it. It’s a seductive tale. Things were better then. The country was unchallenged in the world. Jobs were plentiful. Minorities, women, gays, and immigrants knew their place. There was order in the land. But over many decades, as a result of struggle and movements, society evolved and changed. We are at a perilous moment. Do we want to go back or continue to move forward building on hard-fought gains? During another perilous time, Martin Luther King, Jr. declared, “We’ve got to massively confront the power structure.” We are at a crossroads: the beginning of a brighter or darker future. The choice is ours.
This event was presented by the Lannan Foundation.
Speaker
Angela Davis
Angela Davis is one of the iconic figures of this era. Acquitted on conspiracy charges in 1970, after one of the most famous trials in U.S. history, she went on to become an internationally renowned writer, scholar, and lecturer. She is professor emerita at the University of California at Santa Cruz. She has been at the forefront of the movement focusing on the prison industrial complex and its intersection with race, class and gender. She is the author of many books including Women, Race and Class, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, Abolition Democracy, and Freedom is a Constant Struggle.
BRIAN HILL –
I do not believe that I have heard this speech yet, but I have sought Angela Davis’s wisdom in the text of “Freedom is A Constant Struggle”. Her guidance is thorough and uncompromising. Thank you!
Barbara –
I recently heard this speech of Angela Davis on a local radio station in Nevada City, California. Ms. Davis is, I believe, one of the most brilliant and thoughtful speakers of our time. I hear in her words, remnants from decades ago, and more importantly I hear her acknowledgement of something new that must be created from the young people standing upon the shoulders of those who have gone before them.
This is well worthy of your time and money!
Blessings, Barbara
Nevada City, California