Communist Angela Davis speaking Saturday night at Constitution Day event on Baltimore campus
Constitution Day, on September 17, became an official holiday (appended to an existing holiday – Citizenship Day) in 2004 after Senator Robert Byrd pushed for it. All schools receiving federal funding of any sort (presumably financial aid as well as other grants) must observe it and “provide educational programming on the history of the American Constitution on that day.”
In contrast to the main topic of this post, Johns Hopkins University here in town is having Adam Liptak, a Supreme Court Reporter for the New York Times, speak at their Constitutional Forum on Constitution Day.
I first heard via the website of Red Emma’s Bookstore Coffeehouse that Angela Davis is speaking for Constitution Day observances on September 12 at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA.) Red Emma’s will be selling books for Davis and another speaker to sign.
Red Emma’s website says their name comes from Emma Goldman. Goldman was an anarchist feminist who assisted her lover in planning an assassination attempt on business leader Henry Clay Frick. Goldman was also an inspiration for presidential assassin Leon Czolgosz, who killed President William McKinley. Czolgosz said that a speech by Goldman the week before the murder spurred him to action. Goldman was critical of others in the anarchist movement for not standing by Czolgosz after McKinley’s killing. There’s plenty of more information on Goldman out there, but I’ll cut it short to get to the main point of this posting.
Getting to the topic at hand, Angela Davis is speaking at MICA from 5 to 7 p.m. later today. The ACLU of Maryland, which should be lecturing city prosecutors on free speech, is co-sponsoring the event.
Davis, a native of Alabama, started her road to radicalism at the The Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School in Greenwich Village. While there, she was recruited by Communist youth group Advance. While a student at Brandeis, she was interviewed by the FBI about her attendance at the Communist-sponsored World Festival of Youth and Students in Helsinki.While studying in West Berlin, she crossed the border to East Berlin to attend May Day ceremonies.
On her way back to the US, Davis, who was active in SNCC, attended a conference in London also attended by Stokely Carmichael. She was reportedly upset by the fact that Carmichael and others in the Black Power movement there were critical of communism as a “white man’s thing.”
After going to UCSD and receiving her Master’s degree, she went to Communist East Germany to obtain her PhD. Davis then returned to the US to work at UCLA. While there, she was an active member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) and also involved in the Black Panthers.
Davis was charged with conspiracy charges in 1970 after a shotgun registered in her name was used in the murder of Judge Harold Haley. She fled California and was named to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. She was arrested in New York City two months later and eventually bailed out by legal fees provided by private donors including the PCUSA. She was acquitted in 1972.
After her acquittal, she moved to Cuba to join Stokely Carmichael and Huey Newton. She was received warmly by a large crowd of Afro-Cubans at a mass rally. Davis was a supporter of Jim Jones and his People’s Temple. She spoke at his facility in San Francisco as well as traveling to Jonestown in Guyana to speak.
Davis received the Lenin Peace Prize and was named a honorary professor at Moscow State University during a visit to the Soviet Union in 1979.
In 1980 and 1984, Davis was the vice presidential candidate for the CPUSA along with presidential candidate Gus Hall. She left the CPUSA in 1991 to join the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. She is active in pushing to abolish the death penalty and to dismantle the American prison system.
Other panelists at the event include Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! and Helen Molesworth of the Harvard Art Museums. WYPR host Sheilah Kast will be the moderator.
I first learned of Angela Davis when I was an intern at Accuracy in Academia in 1993. They’re having their own Constitution Day event next week.
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1
Jeff, I think you should lay off the editorializing. Particularly about figures you very obviously only have a Wikipedia level knowledge of. Reading this, I feel a bit embarrassed for you.
I’m certainly no communist or anarchist, but I’ve studied a whole lot of history in my life. Readers should know that it’s quite obvious that you cherry picked the information you included about both these complex and controversial people to accommodate your own particular bias.
Both Emma Goldman and Angela Davis are worthy historical figures to learn about past a couple of paragraphs on a blog. Angela Davis has also made plenty of worthwhile and thought provoking contributions to academia.
On a side note, in the few times I’ve dropped in Red Emma’s for a cup of tea, I’ve found the people that collectively run the shop to be very friendly, genuine, and truly care about our community here. Baltimore is lucky to have Red Emma’s.
Have a good weekend!
Comment by TGISat — September 12, 2009 @ 10:13 am
2
Thanks for the injection of humor on a Saturday morning. My knowledge is more than a wikipedia level. The bios there were just the most convenient ones to link to for providing a nice summary.
What exactly is “editorializing” about this post other than the comment that I think the ACLU should be giving lectures to the City State’s Attorney office on free speech regarding their threats to prosecute James O’Keefe?
Feel free to go into detail about your opinion for why Angela Davis and Emma Goldman are important figures. I never denied they were important figures and I never made an editorial comment about either of them – I posted facts about them.
Comment by Jeff Quinton — September 12, 2009 @ 10:18 am
3
Perhaps Wikipedia does provide a nice summary (I haven’t checked into it), but I wasn’t contesting your source, I was contesting what you decided to put in your post. All I’m saying is that I don’t believe the ’summary’ you’ve provided here is particularly fair to these people. I’ll provide a few examples off the top of my head.
Let’s look at Emma Goldman. You posted “Goldman was also an inspiration for presidential assassin Leon Czolgosz, who killed President William McKinley. Czolgosz said that a speech by Goldman the week before the murder spurred him to action.”
You’ve left vital information out of this paragraph. Czolgosz had a long and well known history of mental illness. He insisted repeatedly in custody that Goldman had no knowledge of his assassination plans. Goldman was investigated for connection at this time and no evidence was found, she was released. Why not mention this? Mentally ill people have been ‘inspired’ by many things or people to commit crimes. This certainly seems like useful information to your readers if you ask me.
Why not mention what Goldman is more well known for? Namely her pioneering support for free speech, women’s rights and equality, birth control, and opposition to war. Particularly her objections to mandatory conscription of young men into the military during World War I, a stance for which she was imprisoned two years and later deported over.
Let’s look at Angela Davis. Your post is titled “Communist Angela Davis speaking Saturday night at Constitution Day event on Baltimore campus.” Yet, right in your own story you provide the fact that Angela Davis is no longer a Communist and hasn’t been in nearly 20 years (“She left the CPUSA in 1991 to join the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.”) I’ve listened to some of her later recordings and she does speak to the fact that she is no longer a Communist.
Perhaps when outlining her “road to radicalism” you’d mention, considering she’s from Birmingham Alabama (you do mention she’s from Alabama), one of the most influential events in her life. The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church by the Ku Klux Klan, a significant historical event in the history of civil rights. One she’s cited as of great significance to her later activism. Why leave this out? Seems like pertinent information your readers might want to know about when considering the legacy of a civil rights activist like Angela Davis.
You also write “Davis then returned to the US to work at UCLA. While there, she was an active member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) and also involved in the Black Panthers.” Perhaps when composing this section, since you already took it upon yourself to muse about free speech and the ACLU previously, you might mention that Davis was fired from UCLA for her membership in the Communist Party in a targeted campaign spurred by none other than former California Governor Ronald Reagan. Reagan’s assault on free speech was later overturned by the Supreme Court when it found Angela Davis was erroneously fired. Rather interesting of you to leave this well known history out, is it not, Jeff?
Since you state that you have more than a Wikipedia level knowledge of both these people then I’m assuming you were already privy to all these additional, and well known, facts. Therefore, I can only come to the conclusion that your own bias colored this post. Personally, I think to any objective reader who’s studied these people, this is rather obvious. I stand by my original post.
Thanks for your reply and enjoy the seemingly improving weather this weekend!
Comment by TGISat — September 12, 2009 @ 12:35 pm
4
Jeff, Don’t feed the trolls.
Comment by Blogger1947 — September 12, 2009 @ 5:24 pm