‘Grasping things at the root’; the life and politics of Angela Davis

Titled Seize the Time, the Oakland Museum of California’s exhibition was curated around the influence of activist and scholar Angela Davis; from print media to courtroom sketches, as well as contemporary artwork and historic photographs. 

Using the Angela Davis Archive in Oakland as the heart of the exhibition, visitors were given the opportunity to investigate how we remember, preserve, and activate radical Black history, while also allowing us to re-imagine Davis as an icon of American Black resistance and female empowerment. 

Looking back, One Million Roses for Angela was also the motto of the German Democratic Republic’s postcard campaign in socialist East Germany, in support of Angela Davis. The campaign ran from 1971 to 1972 while Davis was being held under charges in the U.S.A. 

Hundreds of thousands participated in the campaign and the media spun Angela Davis as the “heroine of the other America”. She was admired by ordinary East Germans and after her acquittal in the U.S, was welcomed to the German Democratic Republic as a state guest. 

Back in July, authorities in the French capital region struck the name of US rights activist Angela Davis from a high school in the Paris suburbs, judging her views on race relations to be too radical. Education Minister Pap Ndiaye opposed the move, stating “a lot of names of schools and education facilities are drawn from a vast range of references that don’t necessarily create a consensus”.

Have you read Women, Race and Class by Angela Davis? From the age of slavery to contemporary injustices, this groundbreaking history of race, gender and class inequality offers an alternative perspective on the female struggles for societal liberation.