Monday, September 10, 2012, Scotiabank 1, 2.00p
Who is Angela Davis? What was she before she
became this beautiful icon on a poster or a button? My memories/knowledge of
Davis are reduced to these visual images … I knew she supported the Black Panthers. I knew that she went into hiding and then was arrested by the FBI but I
didn’t know or had forgotten the details. This doc serves to rectify that for
those of us who were too young to remember or have forgotten this important historical period.
Throughout the film, we have the advantage of Davis, now 68,
narrating the events of her own life with additional commentary from both supporters and some involved in apprehending her. She is still passionate, elegant, articulate - the viewer can easily see how people were drawn to her, even those who did not
espouse Communism or might have had serious reservations about the goals of the
Black Panthers (amusingly, watch the white people in crowds doing the Black Panther power salute).
Davis was an acting assistant professor in the
philosophy department at the University of California, Los Angeles. Originally
from Alabama in the south, she studied at Brandeis University and German
philosophy at Frankfurt University and eventually moved back to the U.S. to
assume this academic position at UCLA.
She was a radical who supported withdrawal from
the Vietnam War, gay rights, prison reform, the Black Panthers … your basic
right-wing conservative nightmare in Ronald Reagan's California.
The filmmaker lets the images of that time speak
for themselves: photos and film of black people being beaten the streets by cops, fire hoses turned on women
and children, an older lady who looks like your aunt Ginny being dragged down the
street by a burly cop. It certainly must have felt like black people were under siege.
A vocal member of the Communist party and an
advocate for the Soledad Brothers - three black prison inmates charged with the murder of white prison guard (which included prison advocate George
Jackson) - she soon became the target of racist invective and death threats herelf. She
bought a gun; actually, she bought four guns. Some of those were used in a hostage
taking by a trio of Black Panthers in a courthouse in California that ended
with the killing of a judge.
On August 7, 1970, George Jackson's seventeen-year-old
brother Jonathan held up a courtroom at the Marin County Civic Center and took
Superior Court Judge Harold Haley, Deputy District Attorney Gary Thomas, and
three female jurors hostage in a bid to secure the freedom of the "Soledad
Brothers". It ended spectacularly - horribly and bloodily.
Davis was charged with murder, kidnapping and
conspiracy and imprisoned. A massive worldwide campaign ensued to “free” her.
The film documents the events leading to the hostage taking, the political fall
out, the push to remove Davis from her academic position with California
governor Ronald Reagan leading the charge and urging the regents to remove
Davis. The film also documents the Angela "mania" effectively - the rallies in foreign countries in support of Davis, the T-shirts, the buttons, the music written in homage.
She was eventually acquitted in 1972 but
continued to work as an activist and lecturer - a portion of her life that the
doc does not explore - but disavowed her membership in the Communist party.
And she continues to persevere … the charisma, the magic is
still there. She continues to inspire even if her thoughts appear more measured
and voiced in less strident tones. And, happily for me, she's still got a very cool Afro do happening.
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| Angela now ... |
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