Angela Davis’ long, memorable afro is styled in a more contemporary kinked-at-the-ends style, but her staunch stance against injustice has gone untouched.
The longtime civil rights activist was in town Sunday and spoke with fellow activist and actor Danny Glover at the St. Louis American Black History Month Keynote Address at Saint Louis University.
Glover was in St. Louis to speak at United for Peace and Justice’s Second National Assembly and first major anti-war gathering since the reelection of President George W. Bush.
More than 400 people from around the country attended the two-and-a-half day gathering, including delegates from Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Veterans Against War, Black Voices for Peace, American Friends Service Committee, Peace Action and St. Louis-based Instead of War.
The Bush Administration recently asked Congress for $80 billion more in war finances, on top of the already appropriated $151 billion.
Glover and Davis spoke against the war in Iraq during their address to the 1,600-plus, diverse crowd at SLU’s Black Student Alliance.
“The context of this year’s Black History Month is unfortunately provided by the continued war on the people of Iraq and practices of global war by the Bush Administration. And precisely those forces that say they make the world safe for freedom and democracy are spreading war, torture and racism around the world,” Davis said.
“The Bush government represents its project as the global offensive against terrorism, but the context of that offensive has generated what we might call practices of state terrorism.”
Both speakers connected their concern with the war on Iraq with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s broad interests in human rights.
“When I was at home in Birmingham after college, I heard Dr. Martin Luther King speak. The crowd that gathered in this still-segregated city expected him to focus entirely on prospects for civil rights, so many people were surprised when he devoted the majority of his remarks to the war on Vietnam,” Davis said.
“The point he made was that the suppression of black people’s rights did not occur in a vacuum and that the challenge to segregation and the broader structures of racism are very deeply connected to the challenges of imperialist war.”
During a question and answer session, Glover added, “When Venezuelans celebrate their revolution, they celebrate the Haitian Revolution because of those who gave arms and money in order to free and liberate Latin America. They understand the connection between their revolution and the Haitian Revolution.”
Davis said black people need to stop comparing and contrasting their oppression to others and organize to help fight repression wherever it exists. She said she gets angry when she hears people talking about gay rights as if it will pollute the very meaning of civil rights.
Davis acknowledged that racism still needs to be addressed, though the battle is changing.
“It’s important to for us to recognize that racism changes, it mutates, it’s never the same. The racism we fight today is not the racism we fought in the 19th century and the 1960s,” she said.
“It’s a part of the structure of this society. It dictates who gets to attend a university like this one and who gets to go to prison, who gets healthcare and who doesn’t, who gets frisked by homeland security and who doesn’t.”
Both speakers also spoke of the late Ossie Davis and the role of artists in the fight for civil rights. Glover related a conversation he had with Ossie Davis two weeks before his death.
“He said ‘we got a lot of work to do because he said it’s going to take us artists to save humanity from destroying one another,'” Glove said. “So he knew the connection between art and struggle for social justice.”
In his honor that evening, Glover recited Langston Hughes poem, “I’ve Known Rivers.” Earlier in the program the Melody of Praise Gospel Ensemble and the Bare Naked Statues performed “Old Man River.”
“That always reminds me of Paul Robeson who also fought for civil rights,” Davis said. “It ought to encourage us about the extent to which art does matter. Art can make a difference.”
Helen Mosley, communications chair of SLU’s Black Student Alliance said she enjoyed the programs although Davis and Glover were broad at times since they hit so many issues.
“I like that they said we need to be concerned with about what goes on in other countries,” she said.
