A living, breathing document of struggle will visit the University tomorrow.
Angela Davis, Ph. D, internationally known activist and writer, will speak in Pierson Auditorium tomorrow night at 8 p.m.
The event, sponsored by the UMKC Arts and Sciences Student Council, will Davis' first appearance at UMKC. Dubbed "An Evening with Dr. Angela Davis," the lecture is presented SWAGS (Students for Womyn and Gender Studies) and American Humanics. The groups raised over $13,000 in preparation for the event.
Davis is well known for her work to combat oppression worldwide. In 1969, she gained national attention after she was forced to leave her teaching position in the philosophy department at UCLA for her involvement in social activism. Her membership in the Communist Party prompted her immediate removal and also landed her on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List.
Davis went underground and was the subject of an intensive police search. After her capture and trial – one of the most famous in recent U.S. history – she was incarcerated on false charges for sixteen months. A massive international "Free Angela Davis" campaign was organized. She was acquitted in 1972.
Today she remains an advocate of prison abolition and has developed a powerful critique of racism in the nation's criminal justice system.
Davis is a member of the Advisory Board of Prison Activist Resource Center and is currently working on a comparative study of women's imprisonment in the United States, the Netherlands and Canada.
During the last 25 years, Davis has lectured in all 50 states and throughout the world. She is a widely published author and a tenured professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In 1994, she received the distinguished honor of an appointment to the University of California Presidential Chair in African American and Feminist Studies.
