‘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, 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. 

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. 

First published in 1974, Angela Davis: An Autobiography is a classic of the Black Liberation era which resonates just as powerfully today. Told with warmth, brilliance, humour, and conviction, it is an unforgettable account of a life committed to radical change. 

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. 

Facing a world of outrageous injustice, Davis challenges us to imagine and in doing so, she reminds us that ’Freedom is a constant struggle.’ Davis discusses the legacies of previous struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. 

Powerful and rewarding, filled with insight and provocation, Abolition: Politics, Practices, Promises, is essential reading for anyone seeking to imagine a world without prisons. Angela Y. Davis has been at the forefront of collective movements for prison abolition for over fifty years.