https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhObhSenc5s Angela Davis and Michelle Alexander take part in a panel discussion on the issue of mass incarceration at Riverside Church in New York City on September 14, 2012. They answer the questions: what is the problem of mass incarceration and what does it say about the United States society?
In a Women’s History Month special, Democracy Now! speaks with author, activist and scholar Angela Davis, professor emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her latest book is titled “Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement,” a collection of essays, interviews and speeches that highlight the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world. “There are moments when things come together in such a way that new possibilities arrive,” Davis says. “When the Ferguson protesters refused to go home after protesting for two or three days, when they insisted on continuing that protest, and when Palestinian activists in Palestine were the first to actually tweet solidarity and support for them, that opened up a whole new realm.”
By Dara Cooper, Contributing Editor, Environment, Food, & Sustainability
This past November 2nd was the 35th anniversary of a day celebrated by many as Assata Shakur Liberation Day. It is the day former Black Panther Assata Shakur was liberated from a maximum-security prison, a day many acknowledge as a celebration of freedom fighters, political prisoners and exiles.
Although Shakur is widely lauded as an activist, freedom fighter, artist, and important public intellectual, the U.S. government persistently characterizes her as an enemy of the state, a terrorist. In May 2013, the FBI placed Shakur on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list and doubled the bounty for her capture to an outrageous $2 million, even though she has been granted political asylum in Cuba. But, as Mos Def eloquently declares with the title of his essay about Shakur: “The Government’s Terrorist is Our Community’s Heroine.”
“Viewed through the lens of U.S. law enforcement, Shakur is an escaped cop-killer,” Mos Def explains. “Viewed through the lens of many Black people, including me, she is a wrongly convicted woman and a hero of epic proportions.”
