A Revolutionary's Self-Portrait

Some of us, white and black, know how great a price has already been paid to bring into existence a new consciousness, a new people, an unprecedented nation. If we know and do nothing, we are worse than the murderers hired in our name. If we know, we must fight for your life as though it were our own--which it is--and render impassible with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night. letter from James Baldwin   to Angela Davis, 1971

PERHAPS--AS SHE contends--the international movement to free Angela Davis that sprang up in 1970 after her arrest on charges of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy would have been just as massive if it had been centered around some other political prisoner. The era of massive political protests was still in full force and during the previous year there had been a number of strong defense committees set up for several comrades--the Soledad Brothers, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Erica Huggins. But the millions of people who signed petitions and donated money to over 200 chapters of the National United Committee to Free Angela Davis represented by far the largest and most cohesive movement of its kind.

In every prison in which Davis was held during her 22 months behind bars her fellow inmates risked solitary confinement and other punishments to show their support for her; thousands gathered outside of the jails in which she was held to chant, "Free Angela Davis"; each time she was moved or brought into court throngs of supporters turned out to demonstrate for her; letters poured into the courts and California officials' offices whenever visitors reported that she was being ill-fed or mistreated by the prison staff. There is no doubt that this tremendous support and the publicity it brought Davis's trial influenced the manner in which the judge conducted the trial. Furthermore, it helped to head off a conviction that would have been based upon circumstantial evidence and a ludicrous plot concocted by the government.

YET THE MOVEMENT that welled up to support Davis differed from those of other defense committees in more than just strength: It encompassed a far wider segment of the American populace than those groups who agreed politically with Davis. Despite President Nixon's assessment that she was one of the country's most dangerous criminals, liberal politicians, establishment professors and previously apolitical pop stars lent their names to Free Angela Davis Committees and fund-raising events. Those who turned out or wrote letters and signed petitions to support Davis cut across class barriers and encompassed a wide spectrum of political groups. These included impressive numbers from various minority groups and white working and middle class citizens.

The charges the government made against Davis were clearly spurious ones. As the trial developed it became obvious that they were merely a facade for political persecution. This in part accounts for the wider base of the Free Angela Davis movement. Still, Angela Davis is a member of the Communist Party USA. She openly denounces the "corporate pigs" and capitalist system that allows them to exploit her brothers and sisters. In 1970, Gov. Ronald Reagan and the UCLA Board of Regents sought to fire her from her teaching post at UCLA and they eventually did not renew her contract because she is a member of the party. Public opinion polls in California at the time indicated that a majority of citizens felt the state universities should not allow Communists to teach. It was this anti-communist emotionalism and the fears of the metaphorical rhetoric--"Smash the State," "...We rejoice when the pigs' blood is spilled"--contained in her letters that the government hoped would help clinch the case against Davis.

For all her revolutionary fervor and her associations with the Black Panthers, the Communist Party, and other groups advocating violence to throw off capitalist repression, Angela Davis has managed more than anyone else numbered among these organizations to assuage mainstream America. By the end of her trial, Davis had so moved members of the jury with her political statements that even those who originally appeared prejudiced against both blacks and Communists were thoroughly convinced of her innocence. Some even considered the trial an impetus to their own political action to fight repression. When Davis spoke at the Boston Globe Book Festival several weeks ago, a predominantly white, largely over 30 audience was moved to spontaneous applause on several occasions and a standing ovation at the end.

Her middle-class background, her studies at Brandeis and in Germany and--lamentably--her physical attractiveness probably have much to do with why Davis is afforded a more cordial reception than many of her comrades in struggle. In addition, although Davis is a revolutionary, dedicated to the overthrow of the capitalist oppressors, she does not allow her appeals to the masses to become clogged with abstract rhetoric and petty haranguing over who will lead the revolution, which of the diverse Communist or Socialist groups is right, or any of the other questions that fragment many Marxist organizations. Her immediate struggle is not to present to the masses an intellectually ideological framework, but rather the need to fight institutional racism and repression.

AFTER HER ACQUITTAL in June 1972 Davis set out around the country to thank the millions who had worked for her freedom and to ensure that the 200 committees that had been set up for the effort did not give up their struggle after her release. Out of these committees, the National Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression has since grown up. Davis--who is co-chairperson--and several other founders are members of the Communist Party, but the Alliance is made up of many diverse political, religious and ethnic groups, working to unite working class citizens.

Davis was reluctant to write an autobiography, she says, because she feared focus on her personal struggles might detract from the movement for liberation of all oppressed peoples. But Angela Davis: An Autobiography is a moving political statement; one that emphasizes that the same forces that have guided her life have molded the lives of millions of victims of global capitalism and brought them to an epoch that demands collective dedication to the cause of eradicating racism and repression. She insists that her response to these forces has been unexceptional--that her political involvement is "the natural, logical way to defend our embattled humanity." The only extraordinary event during her lifetime-her rescue from persecution and death by millions throughout the world--had nothing to do with her as an individual, Davis says, and could easily have befallen another brother or sister.

Despite her humility it's difficult to ignore the tremendous respect that Davis commands from the millions who worked for her freedom and those who carry on her dialectical struggle now. Angela Davis is a remarkable woman--her autobiography attests to that--and it is no mere historical coincidence that a collective struggle of diverse groups united to oppose racism and political repression has sprung up as an outgrowth of her personal struggles and under her leadership.