Angela Yvonne Davis is an academic, political activist, and author. She has contributed enormously in advancing the political and social conditions of people of color in the United States. She made her mark as a counterculture activist in the 1960s while working with the Communist Party USA.
Davis also served as a professor at the University of California and also as a former director in the Feminists Studies Department of the said university. She also shared a good rapport with the Black Panther Party due to her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.
Her opinions, thoughts, views, speeches and research interests were mainly focused on feminism, critical theory, social consciousness, Marxism, African-American studies, popular music, and so much more.
Read through the thoughts and views of Angela Davis; the radical philosopher that is sure to inspire your day.
Table of Contents
- Angela Davis Quotes About Politics
- Angela Davis Quotes About Leadership
- Angela Davis Quotes About Freedom
- Angela Davis Quotes About Racism
- Angela Davis, More Quotes And Sayings
Angela Davis Quotes About Politics
1. “It’s true that it’s within the realm of cultural politics that young people tend to work through political issues, which I think is good, although it’s not going to solve the problems.”
2. “What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.”
3. “First of all, I didn’t suggest that we should simply get rid of all prisons.”
4. “The campaign against the death penalty has been – while a powerful campaign, its participants have been those who attend all of the vigils, a relatively small number of people.”
5. “As soon as my trial was over, we tried to use the energy that had developed around my case to create another organization, which we called the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression.”
6. “Had it not been for slavery, the death penalty would have likely been abolished in America. Slavery became a haven for the death penalty.”
7. “The work of the political activist inevitably involves a certain tension between the requirement that position be taken on current issues as they arise and the desire that one’s contributions will somehow survive the ravages of time.”
8. “Well for one, the 13th amendment to the constitution of the US which abolished slavery – did not abolish slavery for those convicted of a crime.”
9. “When Bush says democracy, I often wonder what he’s referring to.”
10. “Yes, I think it’s really important to acknowledge that Dr. King, precisely at the moment of his assassination, was re-conceptualizing the civil rights movement and moving toward a sort of coalitional relationship with the trade union movement.”
11. “Well, we see an increasingly weaker labor movement as a result of the overall assault on the labor movement and as a result of the globalization of capital.”
Angela Davis Quotes About Leadership
1. “I never saw myself as an individual who had any particular leadership powers.”
2. “You can never stop and as older people, we have to learn how to take leadership from the youth and I guess I would say that this is what I’m attempting to do right now.”
3. “As a black woman, my politics and political affiliation are bound up with and flow from participation in my people’s struggle for liberation, and with the fight of oppressed people all over the world against American imperialism.”
4. “I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement.”
Angela Davis Quotes About Freedom
1. “Well, of course, there’s been a great deal of progress over the last 40 years. We don’t have laws that segregate black people within the society any longer.”
2. “My name became known because I was, one might say accidentally the target of state repression and because so many people throughout the country and other parts of the world organized around the demand for my freedom.”
3. “And I guess what I would say is that we can’t think narrowly about movements for black liberation and we can’t necessarily see this class division as simply a product or a certain strategy that black movements have developed for liberation.”
4. “Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo – obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other.”
5. “We know the road to freedom has always been stalked by death.”
Angela Davis Quotes About Racism
1. “What I think is different today is the lack of political connection between the black middle class and the increasing numbers of black people who are more impoverished than ever before.”
2. “I grew up in the southern United States in a city which at that time during the late ’40s and early ’50s was the most segregated city in the country, and in a sense learning how to oppose the status quo was a question of survival.”
3. “Racism is a much more clandestine, much more hidden kind of phenomenon, but at the same time it’s perhaps far more terrible than it’s ever been.”
4. “Racism, in the first place, is a weapon used by the wealthy to increase the profits they bring in by paying Black workers less for their work.”
5. “Now, if we look at the way in which the labor movement itself has evolved over the last couple of decades, we see increasing numbers of black people who are in the leadership of the labor movement and this is true today.”
6. “Poor people, people of color – especially are much more likely to be found in prison than in institutions of higher education.”
Angela Davis, More Quotes And Sayings
1. “Radical simply means grasping things at the root.”
2. “We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.”
3. “But at the same time you can’t assume that making a difference 20 years ago is going to allow you to sort of live on the laurels of those victories for the rest of your life.”
4. “I decided to teach because I think that any person who studies philosophy has to be involved actively.”
5. “I’m involved in the work around prison rights in general.”
6. “To understand how any society functions you must understand the relationship between the men and the women.”
If you want to know more about the life and works of Angela Davis, we would suggest you read Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement.
How useful was this post?
Click on a star to rate it!
As you found this post useful...
Share it on social media!
We are sorry that this post was not useful for you!
Let us improve this post!
Tell us how we can improve this post?
