Political activist and author Angela Davis visited UW-Madison students and community members Tuesday evening, inspiring hope and instilling a sense of unity despite what she calls a “hostile national political climate.”
Davis, an Alabama native, has conducted research on issues related to race, imprisonment and gender. She is also a founding member of Critical Resistance, a national organization devoted to the deconstruction of the prison industrial complex.
In the lecture series at Memorial Union, Davis talked about incarceration rates in Wisconsin.
“Forty-three percent of the prison populations are black males in the state of Wisconsin,” Davis said. “This hasn’t changed very much in the past few years.”
This percentage is disproportionate to the overall black population of Wisconsin, which makes up only 6.7 percent of the overall population according Census.gov.
Davis said that as a community, Madison should be focusing more time on educating and empowering youth rather than placing police officers in schools.
“We have to rethink security because education is greater than incarceration,” Davis said.
Progressing into her lecture, Davis highlighted international race relations in regards to Assata Shakur, a fugitive who has been living in Cuba for over 30 years and cannot return to the United States due to her previous murder conviction.
Davis said that Shakur is innocent and by putting pressure on the legal system there could a chance to “bring her home.”
Davis added that we need to stand in solidarity with people like Shakur due to possible wrongful convictions based on race.
“There is no justice when there appears to be bias,” Davis said.
She advised the crowd to learn from the challenges that her generation faced and to look forward to a future of stopping racial injustice.
“You have to follow your passions; don’t be afraid to make mistakes,” Davis said.
