Text
Transcript of Angela Davis Forum
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
Title: Angela Davis: Organized Struggle Against Racial and Political Repression,” at Ford Hall
Forum.
Recording Date: 05 October 1975
Item Information: Angela Davis: Organized Struggle Against Racial and Political Repression,”
at Ford Hall Forum. Ford Hall Forum Collection, 1908-2013 (MS113.3.1, item 0014) Moakley
Archive, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Digital Versions: audio recording and transcript available at http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net
Copyright Information: Copyright © 1975 Ford Hall Forum.
Recording Summary:
Transcription of a Ford Hall Forum that featured political activist Angela Davis discussing the
work of political organizations, such as the Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, to
combat the systemic racial oppression of African Americans in the United States. She details the
failings of capitalism and the perceived rise of fascism in the US. Davis also discusses Boston’s
racial struggles including the crisis surrounding the desegregation of its public schools.
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Transcript Begins
FRANK FITZMORRIS: From Boston, the Eastern Public Radio Network presents the Ford
Hall Forum, coming to you from Alumni Auditorium at Northeastern University.
Good evening, I'm Frank Fitzmorris, welcoming you to the first meeting of the 68th season of
Ford Hall programs, America's oldest forum of public opinion. Tonight's speaker, activist Angela
Davis.
In just a moment, Forum president Emmanuel Gilbert will introduce Angela Davis for tonight's
talk, titled: “The Organized Struggle Against Racist and Political Repression.”
Now here's Ford Hall president Emmanuel Gilbert.
[00:00:41]
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Just before we get into the main segment of our meeting tonight,
there are a couple of minor announcements. I ask you to bear with me. First of all, I'd like to
express the Ford Hall Forum's appreciation to Northeastern University for making this facility
available to us, and for extending themselves in so many ways to make the meetings possible.
Secondly, I have two regulations to hopefully enforce. One is from Northeastern University, and
that's to ask you to please refrain; there'll be no smoking in the hall. It also says no eating, but I
don't see anybody eating, so I think that's no problem at all to worry about.
[00:01:20]
The second announcement is from the Ford Hall Forum. We would like to ask that there be – I
notice a lot of cameras here in the hall – that there be no flash photography at all. [laughter] If
you're going to take pictures, I hope your equipment is such and your skills are such that you can
operate by whatever light is in the hall. It's a matter of difficulty for the speaker if he or she is
constantly interrupted by the flashing of lights. So I ask you please to bear with us on that.
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[00:01:56]
And the second part of that is, there are no tape recordings to be made. The program is broadcast,
as you well know, and so it's public in that extent. But many of our speakers have requested that
recordings not be made by members of the audience because they have other utilization for their
speech, and these get bootlegged and one thing and another and published elsewhere.
So enough for the announcements. Please bear with us.
Now, greetings and good evening, and welcome to the opening session of our 68th annual season
of the Ford Hall Forum. I'm Emmanuel Gilbert, president of the Forum, and your moderator for
this evening.
[00:02:32]
Now, I mentioned this is our 68th consecutive year. This makes us the oldest continuously
operated public forum in the United States. It's been a lean couple of decades for public forums.
They've had all kinds of problems, many have ceased operation; all of them, this one included,
have had great financial problems. And so, many have fallen by the wayside. So in view of that,
this makes our continued existence, and indeed judging by the audience tonight and the record
numbers of members that we have, it's a most unusual bit of longevity for a forum of this kind.
[00:03:14]
I suppose there are many reasons why this is so, but there are two reasons I'd like to call to your
attention tonight because I think they're most pertinent. One is that the Forum assiduously seeks
out different points of view – some popular, some unpopular, occasionally some bland.
[laughter] But we look for different points of view.
Secondly, all of our speakers who come know that they're here to come and express a point of
view. That's the first half of that commitment to the evening. And the second half is that they
must answer questions from the hall and, in effect, they must defend that point of view. These
are two very basic premises under which the Ford Hall Forum operates.
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[00:03:59]
Now, in a free, open, democratic society, these seem very simple, very basic, and not at all
difficult to understand. And yet, because of these two basic reasons for existence, we've had
some troubles, some troubles lasting for a full 68 years, because nobody really subscribes to this
business of freedom of speech and expression when it pertains to the other point of view.
[00:04:25]
You program somebody from the left and immediately the forum is attacked by people from the
right saying they should not have had this forum. You program somebody liberal, you hear from
the conservatives, and vice versa. You program a women's libber and you hear from the male
chauvinists, who don't identify themselves as such, but they complain. [laughter] There is no
point of view I think that we've ever had that hasn't been attacked, or the Forum hasn't been
attacked for presenting it.
Now, we reject this notion of being opposed to letting a valid point of view being heard and
questioned here from the audience. We seek different points of view and we defend their right to
be heard and to present themselves and to be challenged by the audience.
[00:05:15]
Now, our speaker tonight is an example of this pattern. Miss Angela Davis has been called many
things – a radical, a revolutionary, a murderess, a menace to society – all kinds of things. And
we've heard from people who aren't particularly enamored of any of these descriptions and who
have resented the fact that she's here tonight. Of course, we've had many laudatory calls and
letters and people delighted that she's here to grace the Forum platform. But we've also had
memberships canceled, and funds, which would have come to the Forum, diverted because we
offer her this platform.
[00:05:54]
Nevertheless, that's what the Forum is all about. And we're proud to present her here at the Ford
Hall Forum, regardless of what anybody, in this room or outside, thinks of her views. She's here
to express her views and to defend them. You are here in the hall to hear what she has to say and
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to make her defend them if you don't agree with them. As I said, that's what the Forum is all
about. I think this will give us at least another 68 consecutive years.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, here to tell you her views on the organized struggle against racist
and political opposition, and to answer your questions, I'm proud to present Miss Angela Davis.
[applause]
ANGELA DAVIS: Well, first of all, I'd like to thank the Ford Hall Forum for giving me this
opportunity to address you this evening. I'm speaking on behalf of many people, black, brown,
red, yellow and white, who are involved in the struggle to end racist and political repression.
And this evening I want to focus my remarks in general around the issue of racism and the issue
of repression.
[00:07:41]
But let me begin by relating an incident which happened on the way from the airport a little
while ago. Those of you who have come out of Logan Airport have probably seen that huge
billboard that says "Welcome to Boston, the Cradle of Liberty." It all began here. [laughter]
Well, as we drove into the city, we passed another sign. This sign said "White Power KKK."
And of course, you don't need me to tell you that Boston is a city with some very serious
problems at this moment. And probably it's no comfort to you to realize that the problems facing
this city are the same as those plaguing urban centers all over the country – high rates of
unemployment, deterioration of public services, unbelievable rates of inflation, and a total
inability of the municipal governments to begin to provide just and humane solutions to these
problems. This is becoming the normal status of cities all over the country these days.
[00:09:16]
And as we sit here this evening, enormous numbers of working class men and women find
themselves demoralized, unemployed, hungry. And what kind of a response do they receive
when they attempt to get help from federal and state officials that we're supposed to be able to
count on to represent our interests? Just recently right here in the state of Massachusetts, there
was a cutback to the tune of about $678 million in the welfare budget; $22 million cut in the area
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of mental health; $6.2 million from youth services and daycare; and a $9.5 million slash in the
area of public health. And all of this is going on when the rate of unemployment in the state is
absolutely incredible. The last figure I saw was more than ten percent. And this is what's
happening all over the country, indeed.
Now, our President has been talking about his better idea. [laughter] What is Mr. Gerald
Secondhand Ford's better idea? To veto one bill after another that would create jobs for working
people, to veto one bill after another that would give increased aid to educational programs that
are so sorely needed by the youth of this country. From no section of this country's leadership
have we seen the attempt to formulate any policy that would be designed to offset the effects of
this economic crisis, the effects of this economic crisis on the masses of people in this country.
[00:11:28]
I think it's important that we understand the significance of this crisis. It's not the same kind of
cyclical crisis that capitalism is supposed to be able to weather eventually. It's a general crisis in
the whole system of capitalism. A general crisis that has features that are permanent and
irreversible rather than just temporary.
Consider the concrete effects of this crisis. Do you know there was recently a study done at the
University of Pennsylvania, I think. It was discovered that among black teenagers, particularly
black teenagers who are female, young black women, the rate of unemployment is something
like 65%. And not only is unemployment 65%, but these are young people who not only cannot
find a job today, but they don't have the prospect of finding a job any time in the near future.
And that means that a whole generation, a whole generation of young black people is growing up
without ever having had the experience of being able to find and hold down a job.
[00:13:11]
Now, in the absence of any significant policies to meet the needs of our people at this time of
crisis, those who are in control of the wealth, the masters of monopoly in this country and their
administrative and legislative assistants in the White House and on Capitol Hill, are devising the
most hideous policies of repression known to humanity since the most terrible and most
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frightening days of Hitler. And when I say that fascism is becoming an increasingly dangerous
menace to the people of this country, I'm not exaggerating. I use the term fascism after much
consideration.
[00:14:21]
Policies are developed by ruling circles in this country which have racism as their core and the
dissolution of the unity of working people as their intent. These policies are attempting to not
only impose the burden of this crisis on the shoulders of working people, and particularly black
people and other people of color, but they attempt to destroy the very unity that's necessary in
order to fight back against those policies, against this crisis, this crisis which is created by the
gluttony of monopoly for ever-increasing profits – a gluttony that was denied satisfaction by the
people of Vietnam, the people of Mozambique and Angola, the people of Guinea Bissau, and a
gluttony which has been bitterly fought in other countries throughout Africa, throughout Asia,
throughout Latin America.
What is happening is that this greed for profits – and I don't think any one of us could deny that
the basic motivation of the capitalist system is profits – this greed for profits is being turned
upon, even more severely, the working class of this country as it is being increasingly denied
abroad. I think that we must see the recent incidence of violence and racist hysteria here in this
city and other cities across the country surrounding the use of busing to desegregate the school
system within the context of what is being– of the defeats that are being inflicted upon the
capitalist system throughout the world.
[00:17:00]
We have got to see the issue of busing as an instrument through which the ultra right in this
country is hoping to gain a mass political base, a base that could very well lay the groundwork
for fascism. You see, all this shouting about the rights of parents to send their kids to any school
they choose cannot hide the fact that the hysteria surrounding these issues was whipped up by an
organization that calls itself, what is it, ROAR? And ROAR apparently is a coalition of the Nazi
Party, the Ku Klux Klan, the John Birch Society. And it enjoys the active support of the most
notorious racist in this country George Wallace.
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[00:18:04]
Now, oftentimes I think we fail to understand the dynamics of what is going on in that fight
against school desegregation. We fail to see the incredibly profound racism that is at the core, not
so much in the attitudes of those people who are going out and doing all of that dirty business,
but what is being encouraged by the ruling class in this country. Just recently I was reading a
book, re-reading a book by W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the greatest scholars this country has known.
The book was written in 1935. It's called Black Reconstruction. And in one section he was
attempting to understand what all of those lynch mobs were about. And at that time, of course,
lynching was taking place at an extremely rapid pace all over the South; and not only in the
South, but in places like Pennsylvania as well.
He describes the lynch mobs in a very vivid and, I think, a very revealing manner. And I think
we can learn a lesson about what's happening here in this city, and what's happening in
Louisville, from the words of Dr. Du Bois:
"Before the wide eyes of the mob is ever the shape of fear. Back of the writhing, yelling, crueleyed demons who break, destroy, maim and lynch and burn at the stake, is a knot, large or small,
of normal human beings, and these human beings at heart are desperately afraid of something. Of
what? Of many things, but usually of losing their jobs, being declassed, degraded, or actually
disgraced; of losing their hopes, their savings, their plans for their children; of the actual pangs of
hunger, of dirt, of crime. And of all this, most ubiquitous in modern industrial society is that fear
of unemployment. It is its nucleus of ordinary men that continually gives the mob its initial and
awful impetus. Around this nucleus, to be sure, gather snowball-like all manner of flotsam, filth
and human garbage, and every lewdness of alcohol and current fashion. But all this is the
horrible covering of this inner nucleus of fear."
[00:21:33]
And I think that many of those people who have participated in those demonstrations organized
by ROAR truly fit the description that W.E.B. Du Bois has given of those participants in the
lynch mobs of the first part of this century. They are indeed afraid. Many of them are
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unemployed. Many of them don't know where the money is coming to pay the rent at the end of
the month. Many of them go into a supermarket and can't afford to buy food for decent meals to
satisfy their children. And I think that the government of this country and those who wield
economic power in this country understand that, understand that. And therefore, they do
everything within their power, both subtly and in a blatant manner, to encourage these poor
people to explode their frustration in the faces of young black children who have only tried to get
a decent education. They understand that if these white working class people who are victims of
this crisis that we are all experiencing today are brought to a point where they will focus their
frustrations, their discontent against black people, then they'll forget all about the fact that they
really should be struggling against the Rockefellers and against the Hughes, against the
monopolies of this country. They should be fighting for their jobs. They should be fighting not
against black children, but for a decent education for their children and black children alike.
[applause]
[00:23:59]
I don't feel that it is accidental that at this point in the history of this country we are seeing these
outbreaks and explosions in Boston, that we're seeing them in Louisville and in California. In the
state of California, where I'm living at this moment, white people can get together and run out of
town every single black person. This happened in a place called Taft, California, several months
ago. All the black people who lived and studied in that city were run out.
[00:24:45]
It's no accident that you read in the dailies in this country full-page spreads on the Ku Klux Klan
that describe them as if the initials KKK stood for Kindly Knitting Klub, or something like that.
A number of months ago I read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle entitled, "Women's
Liberation in the Ku Klux Klan." [laughter] And that's funny, but at the same time it's very
frightening. Why is it frightening? Because when you see an organization, a racist, reactionary,
fascist organization such as that, legitimized to a certain extent by the mass media, that makes it
much more palatable, not only to those people who should be struggling against racism, but to
potential converts. And in a sense, it's an open invitation to white people to join the Ku Klux
Klan. I'm sure there are many white people who read those articles who say, Well, you know, if
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the Chronicle or if the New York Times can write such a sympathetic account, then they can't be
that bad. So it wouldn't be such a disgrace to associate myself with the Ku Klux Klan.
[00:26:17]
And I think that if you were able to examine the membership list of the KKK, you would
probably discover that it is rapidly increasing, and probably Boston is the place which can claim
the largest membership in the Ku Klux Klan at this moment, this cradle of liberty. This is where
it all began.
I think that white people must be aware of the way in which racism historically, and especially
today, is not only used as an instrument with which to oppress and continue to hold in bondage
millions of people of color in this country, but it's an instrument that's used against the masses of
white people as well. It's an instrument which is used by the ruling circles in this country to
confuse and confound and divide and prevent the understanding on the part of the masses of
white people in this country that their role is to stand side by side with black people and Puerto
Ricans and Chicanos, Asians, Native American Indians, and fight against an enemy which
oppresses all of us.
[00:28:14]
There are many faces in which this fascist pattern is revealing itself today. It's revealing itself in
ways that often aren't perceived by us as such. And I think that it's important to understand that
fascism doesn't usher itself onto the scene with a blare of trumpets. It insinuates itself slowly,
sometimes imperceptibly. It insinuates itself into our lives with the erosions of one democratic
right after another.
[00:29:07]
And let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. How many of you recognize the
name San Quentin Six? Are there any of you present this evening who know what I'm referring
to when I say the San Quentin Six? Have you been following the course of the trial? I don't
know, I haven't been able to read the newspapers in the Boston area. Has the trial been covered?
Well, of course, for those of you who don't know about the San Quentin Six, this is the trial of
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six black and Latino prisoners which stems from the killing, the murder of George Jackson. And
when I say murder, I'm talking about something that will definitely be proved beyond a
reasonable doubt during the course of this trial.
[00:30:20]
The San Quentin Six are charged with a whole string of crimes, clearly, in my opinion, as a
result of the efforts of the California prison authorities to cover up their responsibility for, and
complicity in the murder of George Jackson. The conditions under which this trial is taking place
are absolutely incredible. And so incredible that when you enter that courtroom, you have the
impression of experiencing a nightmare, and you think that this must be Germany in 1933 and
not the United States of America on the verge of celebrating its Bicentennial.
[00:31:22]
Let me try to describe for you what it is like to attend the trial of six black and Latino men who
were supposed to be presumed innocent. And let me point out, too, that this trial is being held in
the very same courtroom in Marin County where I attended many hearings during the time I was
in jail a number of years ago. The courtroom looks a little bit different now though.
[00:31:51]
In order to get into that trial – and it's supposed to be a public trial – you must go through first
one metal detector. And then you walk over to a podium like this and a policeman stands behind
it and you give him your driver's license. He copies your name and your address, and all of the
information. Then you pose for a police photographer who takes your picture, like you're being
booked into the local county jail. After that, you're frisked by hand, and if you happen to have a
natural, like mine for example, a matron, in an extremely degrading manner, attempts to run her
fingers through your hair. Then you go through another metal detector. Now you have to do all
of this just to get into the courtroom!
Once you get into those courtroom, you discover that the courtroom is divided in half by a
bulletproof shield, a bulletproof wall, plexiglass shield. The spectators are on one side; the
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participants in the trial are on the either side – the judge, the jury, the defendants and the lawyers.
Armed guards stand along the walls of the courtroom.
[00:33:24]
And if this were not already enough, when you look at the defendants, at the brothers, you
discover that they are draped in chains – chains around their waist, their wrists chained to their
waist, their feet are shackled to the floor. And if you get a glimpse of them being brought into the
courtroom, they're brought in by San Quentin guards on leashes, neck cuffs, chains attached to
the neck cuffs.
[00:34:00]
How is it possible? How it is possible for any one of those twelve jurors to feel that someone
must already think they're guilty. Someone must think they're violent. Someone must think
they're dangerous. Otherwise all of this paraphernalia wouldn't be necessary. How can they
possibly receive a fair trial under those conditions?
It's a very strange feeling. It's hard to even convey to you what this is all about. The bulletproof
shield is made out of plexiglass, as I pointed out. It's dark and murky, and it's very thick, so it
tends to distort the faces of the people on the other side.
Oh, I'm sorry. Is everyone able to hear me?
[00:35:08]
As I was saying, the plexiglass tends to distort the faces of the people on the other side. And you
sit there and you watch this judge, who incidentally was Ronald Reagan's financial campaign
manager and was appointed by him afterwards. And you see this man, who has done everything
within his power to set the stage for a conviction of the San Quentin Six. You see him screaming
something out at the lawyers and he moves and his face becomes all distorted and grotesque.
And you really feel that this is a nightmare; it can't possibly be happening.
[00:35:50]
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But it is happening. And it's important for all of us to understand what that means for our lives.
It's not only that the rights of six black and Latino men are being violated in a grotesque and
fascist manner. It's that our rights are also being violated. If they can try these people under those
conditions, that means that any one of us might be charged one day and might be tried under
those conditions, and a conviction would be ensured, you see.
It's very important for us to understand the relationship between the attack on the rights of those
people who are suffering most under the repression that has revealed itself all over the country.
And the potential effect it will have on you and your responsibility to get involved in the
struggle, to push it back before it engulfs all of us.
[00:36:59]
I get sometimes very disturbed and very upset when I don't see masses of people fighting back
against the kind of open and blatant manifestation of repression. I get upset because I know that
there was a time when I was behind those walls and when I realized that my conviction would
also be ensured, it would be guaranteed if large numbers of people, black people, white people,
Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, Asians, Indians, working people, students, ministers, women activists,
political activists, if people in general did not respond and fight back, not only because of what
was happening to me, but what might happen to them tomorrow.
[00:38:06]
In the state of North Carolina, which is probably the most repressive state in this country today,
there are scores of political activists behind walls. There are high school students who are in
prison facing 20-year, 40-year terms because they struggled for black studies programs,
struggled to have the birthday of Martin Luther King celebrated on their high school campuses.
I'm not exaggerating, I'm not exaggerating. Reverend Ben Chavis and his nine co-defendants,
eight black men who were high school students in 1971 and a white woman who was an activist
in the women's movement, they are facing terms of from 10 to 34 years as a result of the
struggles they waged against the racist policies of the school system in North Carolina.
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And I hope that many of you have already heard about the case of Reverend Ben Chavis and the
Wilmington Ten. Because you see, if they can imprison a minister, if they can put a minister in
prison for the rest of his life as a result of his efforts to translate his beliefs, his religious beliefs
into practice, then what can they do to those of us who are talking about organizing masses of
people to build a revolutionary movement so that we can usher into being a society that truly will
respond to the needs and reflect the dreams and aspirations, not of a few greedy capitalists, but of
the masses of people in this country.
[00:40:12]
I think that all of us have a responsibility to participate in this struggle to turn back this fascist
monster that's growing and growing every day. We have to fight against the passage of Senate
Bill 1, which is literally a blueprint for fascism, literally. And I would urge all of you to try to
find out about this bill and read what its provisions are – the death penalty for treason; the
imprisonment of people who advocate the overthrow of the government, of the United States of
America; the refusal to permit demonstrations within sight or sound of a courthouse. All kinds of
provisions are included in this Senate bill.
[00:41:33]
We must struggle, I think, to free the woman, the Puerto Rican woman who is not only the
longest held political prisoner, along with her comrades, in this country, but in the entire Western
hemisphere. Lolita Lebrón has been in prison for over 20 years as a result of her determination to
fight the colonial subjugation of her people in Puerto Rico by the United States government. She
has been offered parole many times, but the conditions of that parole are that she not participate
in any activities, nor associate with any people involved in the movement for Puerto Rican
independence.
[00:42:35]
We must struggle to free a young black man in Florida, who has been sentenced to death as a
result of a frame-up rape charge. And I mention this because I think that it's very important for us
to understand that the victory that was won by Sister Joan Little as a result of the widespread
support she received all over this country must also extend to black men who are the victims of
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the same kind of racism that was inflicted on Joan Little when she was raped by a racist jailer.
You see, historically the use of the rape charge has been used in the very same racist manner
against black men as the rape of black women has been interwoven into the history of our people
in this country.
Perhaps you remember the Scottsboro Boys. Perhaps you remember Emmett Till, who was found
at the bottom of the Tallahatchie River because he had been accused of smiling at a white
woman; a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago who went to Mississippi to visit his relatives.
[00:44:14]
There's a man by Delbert Tibbs who was recently sentenced to death in Florida as a result of a
frame-up rape charge in which he was accused by a young white woman of having raped her and
having killed her companion. To just give you an idea of the incredible inconsistencies in that
case which are, in my opinion, proof beyond any doubt that he's innocent, she described her
attacker at first as a dark-skinned man with pock marks on his face. Delbert Tibbs is very lightskinned, he has a very clear complexion. But she took the stand during the trial and said that his
complexion had lightened several shades since the time she had seen him and had been raped by
him. I mean, I could go on and on; he wasn't anywhere near the incident. He was 275 miles away
when it happened. He was traveling through Florida. He's a novelist and he was trying to gather
material for a novel about the South and was hitchhiking and happened to be picked up by the
police. He was an unknown black man and the easiest victim, the easiest scapegoat for that racist
hysteria that was generated as a result of this woman's contentions that she had been raped.
[00:45:52]
I don't want to spend very much more time speaking because I know that many of you
undoubtedly have questions that you'd like to ask and it's getting late. So let me conclude with
first a poem and then a quotation from a great figure of black history in this country. The poem
was written by Brother Delbert Tibbs, recently, as he sits on death row in Florida. And it's called
"A Poem."
[00:46:44]
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I need a poem, I need a poem, a master poem.
Once and for all I need a poem to destroy poetry and break these iron bars.
A poem to make stars weep, need a poem, a poem
for troubling the sleep of the chained,
Some words and strikes of magic to be heard through all the world.
[00:47:24]
I hope there are those of you who will leave this evening determined that we, the people of this
country, united and strong, can truly become those strikes of magic that Brother Tibbs is seeking.
If we are truly, honestly, sincerely interested in defending our rights and our liberties, our lives,
and the lives of those who at this point in the history of this country are suffering for all of us,
those who are doing all of the suffering – the Delbert Tibbs, the Wilmington Ten, the San
Quentin Six, the Lolita Lebróns – then we must recognize that we must struggle.
[00:48:23]
As Frederick Douglass said in 1857, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who
profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation want crops without plowing up the ground.
They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its
many waters. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out
just what any people will quietly submit to. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to
and you will have found the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon
them, and these will until they are resisted with either words or blows or with both."
Thank you. [applause]
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Thank you very much, Miss Davis. And now, we will enter the
second portion of our program, the questions from the floor. For the benefit of those of you who
are here for the first time, may I ask that you raise your hand if you have a question and I will
acknowledge them. I'll try and go around the room and give some kind of a distribution to the
questioners. And then, direct your question, please, to me. I will repeat them so it can be picked
up by the radio microphone, and then Miss Davis will answer the questions.
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Let's start on this side of the room first. Yes, sir? Will you please stand? No, the gentleman in the
back there, would you please stand?
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Miss Davis, if the actions of ROAR in Boston are simply
manifestations, as you claim, of the ruling circles of the United States, how then would you
explain the determined effort of the government at the city, state and federal level through their
police power to ensure the safety of schoolchildren in Boston?
[00:51:08]
EMMANUEL GILBERT: The gentleman asked if you would attempt to explain the combined
efforts of city and state marshals to ensure the safety of the children and the desegregation
problem if, as you claim, the actions of ROAR are behind it all and not particularly meaningful.
[00:51:31]
ANGELA DAVIS: I remember an incident which took place last year having to do with the
President of the United States of America. At the time that the school desegregation was ordered,
there were appeals that were directly made to Mr. Ford to immediately send federal troops to
guarantee the safety of the schoolchildren who would be attending the newly desegregated
schools. At that time, Mr. Ford made a statement on national television before millions of people
in this country. He made a statement to the effect that he disagreed with the court decision. Do
you remember that? He said he disagreed with the decision, the order with respect to
desegregation. And so what if he disagreed with it? Anyone who has read a civics book, even a
fourth grade student knows that the way in which the government in this country is supposed to
function has to do with the division powers, and that the executive has no right to overrule
decisions of the judiciary, but, rather, is supposed to execute those decisions.
[00:53:11]
Now, not only did he not order that troops, federal troops be brought in– and see, I think that
could have headed off the whole thing before it even exploded, you see. But by making the
statement that he disagreed with the court decision, he was saying "right on" to all of those
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reactionary and racist forces that tried to whip up this hysteria in Boston. And I think that
President Ford's statement, more than anything else in this country, is what was responsible for
all of that racist violence here in Boston. [applause]
[00:53:58]
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Miss Davis, I'm confused about what you're talking about, the main
issues here tonight. You came here to talk about racism and oppression. Along in your speaking
several times you linked capitalism with fascism. Now I'm a student, and I seek truth, and I seek
knowledge. I've always been caught and I've always learned through my own experiences–
EMMANUEL GILBERT: What is the question, please? [laughter]
AUDIENCE QUESTION: How is capitalism, which is known as a free market, free economy,
means individual rights, i.e.; and fascism, which is known under the facade of individual
freedom but is controlled by one controlling factor – take one instance, Italy–
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Will you please ask the question?
AUDIENCE QUESTION: yes. I'm confused as to how you link capitalism and fascism
together. It seems to be a contradiction in terms.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: The gentleman asked how you link capitalism and fascism together
in your talk.
[00:54:53]
ANGELA DAVIS: Maybe next week he would like to come and deliver a lecture here.
[laughter] But let me seriously try to respond to that question. First of all, I think that it's very
clear that capitalism is not an economy-based freedom or liberty. Are you listening to me? You
don't appear to want to even hear the answer.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: [inaudible] because all throughout the history of man, capitalism–
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ANGELA DAVIS: All right, he says that I've already turned him off. I am trying to explain to
you.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: You've had your question. Now let her answer.
[00:55:43]
ANGELA DAVIS: First of all, capitalism may indeed be a system which allows certain people
certain liberties and certain freedoms. But I think that unfortunately those people constitute the
very smallest minority in this country. They constitute the Rockefellers, the Duponts, the
Hughes, the corporations. I could name them probably if had about five minutes, less than that, I
could name all of those corporations that control the vast majority of the wealth in this country.
[00:56:20]
Now, what does it mean in general for working people? They say that working people are free.
That's true, they're free to get a job and make some money. But what actually happens? What are
the inner dynamics of exploitation? See, because when you talk about capitalism as an
exploitative system, that is not, in my opinion, a moral judgment about capitalism, it's a
descriptive term. And it's very interesting how, with the development historically of capitalism,
the whole character of the labor of working people underwent a transformation. If you are a
worker and you go and work on the assembly line at an auto plant, for example, you aren't paid
for the work that you do. You aren't paid for the work that you do. You aren't paid for building
those cars. You are paid for your ability to work. You're paid for your labor power. And those of
you who have studied Marx Das Kapital will understand that distinction.
[00:57:41]
You're paid by the capitalist so that you will be able to come back and work the next day. How is
it that all of these thousands, billions and billions of dollars of profit would come about if it
didn't have something to do– I mean, Rockefeller, with all of the money that he has, has he ever
done an honest day's work in his life? He sits in a– who does all of that work? It has to be
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coming from somewhere. And working people simply are not compensated for what they
produce. Working people are paid just enough to survive.
[00:58:24]
Marx makes that very clear when he says that instead of being paid for their labor, instead of
being paid for what they produce, they are paid for their labor power, their ability to work. And
that means that the capitalist owes the worker – and these are written in to the dynamics of
capitalism – only enough in order for that worker and his or her family to survive.
[00:58:51]
Now, going on to the question – and I'm not going to speak very much longer – the question of
the relationship of fascism and capitalism. You see, I think that fascism is a reaction, a response
of a capitalist ruling class. When the drive for profit becomes so severe that the rights of people,
not only in terms of their economic rights, must be severely violated, but they must be prevented
from struggling, prevented from organizing for movements for their freedom.
And if you look at what's happening across the globe, capitalism is being rejected more and more
and more by ever-greater masses of people in this world. First of all, you have to consider that
one-third of the people, one-third of the people who inhabit this globe live and are building
socialist societies. That's one third; I mean, that's one-third of all the people in the world. And
then if you look at Africa, if you look at Asia, if you look at Latin America, you discover that
those countries that have received, and fought for, achieved their independence recently have
understood there's no way in the world that they're going to be able to respond to the needs of the
people of their country if they continue to adhere to the imperialism, if they continue to be a part
of the imperialist order, if they continue to try to talk about building capitalism. They understand
that capitalism is exploitative inherently. And it only is able to function in the interest of a very
small minority of people.
[01:01:00]
What did the people of Guinea Bissau do when they proclaimed their independence? They said
they were going to build a socialist society. What were the people of Vietnam fighting about?
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They were fighting about their right to build socialism. What was the struggle in Chile all about?
And why did not only the fascists inside Chile respond so violently and with the bloodiest coup
of this recent period? Why did people like Kissinger join them? Why did ITT join them? Why
did the Pentagon join them? Because they understood, first of all, those people who voted to
enter upon a socialist revolutionary process understood what they wanted. They said, for
example, We don't believe that Kennecott Copper and Anaconda Copper have the right to come
here and force us to slave in these mines and then take the profits that we make for them and put
it in their pockets 3000 miles away. They said that they felt they had the right to utilize the
products of their labor, the resources of their land in order to satisfy their needs to build schools,
to build housing, to have free medical care. I mean, those kinds of basic things.
[01:02:28]
Capitalism can't do it because it's not profitable. It's not profitable to have free childcare centers.
Nobody makes any money off of free childcare centers. That's why you don't see this society
responding to the needs of its people. It's not profitable to have free healthcare for everyone. It's
not profitable to have free education.
One more point. And that point is that at a time when it becomes increasingly difficult for
capitalism to function smoothly as a system, to function while putatively respecting the
democratic rights of the citizens of the country in question, at this particular point in the history
of capitalism, it is not possible. Because working people are more and more conscious; black
people, people of color are more and more conscious of the need to struggle for liberation. And
then the response, the desperate response becomes a fascist response. And that is the fascist
kernel that I think exists in this country today in which we must struggle against if we do not
want it to grow like a cancer and mushroom into a full-blown capitalist system.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: I would suggest to the audience that they attempt to confuse our
speaker by keeping their questions clear, curt and concise. She will no doubt retaliate by making
her responses tight and terse and taut. [laughter] Okay, from the center of the room. Yes, miss.
[01:04:25]
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AUDIENCE QUESTION: You speak as if there is a conspiracy, a definite, constructed
conspiracy, which is bad. This consists of the fractious racists. How does your position differ
from the claims made on the left that there is a conspiracy? What proof do you have that there is
a real conspiracy any more so than the ones on the left say there is a communist conspiracy?
EMMANUEL GILBERT: The questioner makes the point that the left or the right, they both
contend they're a conspiracy. How do you document your claims?
[01:05:03]
ANGELA DAVIS: Well, let me ask you something. Did you by any chance see the Watergate
hearings? [laughter/applause] Have you by any chance been following the Senate select hearings
on the intelligence community? Have you by any chance heard that not too long ago there was a
test in the subways of New York City to determine just how swiftly and effectively it would be
possible to saturate the subway system of New York City with poison gas? Yeah, didn't you all–
you mean that in this cradle of liberty the newspaper didn't report that this was one of the results
of one of the hearings that took place? Well, I don't think I have to go any further. I could give
you many, many, many, many more examples of that conspiracy. But I don't think I need to go
any further. Do I?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: No!
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Miss Davis, can I usurp a questioner's prerogative and ask, if this is
proof, if this capitalist press, which obviously must be suspect, reports it, what proof is that of
any fact? [laughter/applause]
[01:06:37]
ANGELA DAVIS: Well, I'm not sure whether that's meant to be a philosophical question as to
how we go about obtaining our knowledge about reality. But I think that we can be sure that
what we have learned so far is probably not the truth, in the sense that it's just the tip of an
iceberg. I think we can be sure that the problems with having to rely on the capitalist press have
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to do with their covering up many of the things that we need to know in order to really
understand what is happening in this country. And they've tried to cover it up.
[01:07:34]
I can remember, a number of years ago, we used to say there was a conspiracy against the Black
Panther Party because we thought that we could see the evidence in those attacks that took place
in city after city after city, places where Mark Clark and Fred Hampton were murdered as they
lay sleeping in their beds and a situation was created so that it would appear as if they had been
the ones to do the shooting and the police had been defending themselves. And we said that was
a conspiracy because the facts pointed to that. It's only now, of course, a number of years later
that, as a result of an investigation, it has come out that there was indeed a conspiracy that was
led by J. Edgar Hoover and that involved police departments all over this country to destroy the
Black Panther Party. [applause]
AUDIENCE QUESTION: I've noticed a movement from Boston and they go by the name of
Tactical Police [Force]. I asked somebody what they were about and someone told me they were
here to help desegregate the schools. Now, that answer didn't make too much sense to me. I'd
like to know what you think about that.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: The Tactical Police allege that they're here to help the youngsters
get to school, to desegregate the schools. That answer didn't make much sense. She asked you to
comment on that aspect.
[01:08:57]
ANGELA DAVIS: Well, you see, I mentioned, I think, during the course of my remarks that
there were many, many more examples of what I called an increasingly fascist pattern in this
country. And one of them is the proliferation of special counterinsurgency forces and police
departments all across the country. The tactical police incidentally in police departments
throughout the country have been trained by the FBI. In California, there was recently – and we
read this in the bourgeois press – that the FBI came out and trained special sectors of the police
departments of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and a lot of small towns in the Bay Area.
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[01:09:54]
The special weapons and tactical squad– you all probably see that TV program that's called
SWAT. You know, most of you've seen that, haven't you? Well, see, I was incidentally
personally present at the debut of SWAT in Los Angeles. Do you know when that took place,
when they first were utilized by the police department? To attack the Black Panther Party. They
maintain that they had a warrant to deliver to a member of the Black Panther Party and they
came to deliver this warrant with the force of 600 policemen, led by the SWAT squad. They had
a helicopter. They had dynamite. They had machine guns. They had bulletproof vests. This was
in order to deliver a warrant. And they proceeded to destroy the offices and to wound –
fortunately no one was killed – many of the people who were inside.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: I don't think it's necessary to defend the need for revolution. The
question is, when's the next time you're going to be in Boston and be in Roxbury where you don't
have to defend revolution and you don't have to have questions asked about the need. [applause]
EMMANUEL GILBERT: The gentleman asks, when are you going to be in Boston next and
in Roxbury with a less hostile audience?
[01:11:40]
ANGELA DAVIS: I think the point that the brother makes is very important. Because black
people and people of color in this country know that something has to be done. They know that
we can't live this way very much longer. When you walk in the streets of Harlem on a
Wednesday afternoon and you see the streets just as crowded as they would be on a Sunday
afternoon because all of those people are not able to get work, you know that something has to
change. And when you've experienced hundreds of years of racism in this country, and when you
know that the only way we've survived, the only way we've made it to where we are now is
through struggle. Like Frederick Douglass said in 1837, that's the only way we've been able to
make it this far.
[01:12:39]
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I think though, to further answer, I'm probably going to be in Boston some time soon. This is the
first trip I've made in about a year, but I probably will be back. And you can be sure that I will
visit with my sisters and brothers in Roxbury. I think it's important for white people in this
country to understand that if they stand idly by while black people, people of color are maimed
and murdered and subjugated to death, then it's going to happen to them as well. [applause]
Let me remind you of that statement that was made by that Protestant theologian who emerged
after the defeat of fascism, what did he say? He said, "First they came for the communists, but I
wasn't a communist, so I did nothing. And then they came for the Jews, but I wasn't a Jew, so I
did nothing. Then they came for the trade unionists, but I wasn't a trade unionist, so I did
nothing." He went all the way down the line and he said, "And finally they came for me. And
when I looked around, there was nobody left to help." [applause]
AUDIENCE QUESTION: In connection with your feeling that fascism has insidious ways of
insinuating itself among us, I wonder if you could comment on the increasing romanticism of
organized crime, particularly among the middle class.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Could you comment on the increased popularity or fascination held
by organized crime, particularly among the middle class?
ANGELA DAVIS: I think that such movies as The Godfather are probably descriptive not only
of organized crime, but of the ruling class in this country. I mean, crime has always been a part
of the ruling class.
[01:15:07]
Let me just give you an example. All of these illegal contributions that were made by these
corporations, wasn't that crime? Not only crime in the sense of making illegal contributions and
thus buying the presidency, but crime in the sense of an attack on the democratic rights and
liberties of all the people in this country. Richard Nixon wasn't elected by a mandate. His
presidency was bought for him.
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[01:15:49]
And then what happens? It's important to continue down the line and ask yourself what happens
to these criminals, these ruling class criminals. Do they go to prison? I've been in three jails and I
never saw a person who wasn't poor, regardless of what color they were. Those ruling class
criminals who do end up going to jail, well, they go to these country club prisons like
Allenwood, where they can play golf and play tennis and ride horses.
But you see, it's the class question, that's the point. It's the class question, and working class
people are the ones who are the victims, always.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Would you care to comment on a new system that seems to be
evolving, where the worker would own, participate in the direct management of a corporation or
a company, would take over the assets of a company and would therefore avoid changing the
bureaucracy in a fascist democracy for the bureaucracy that has existed in a communist state. It
would be like going from somebody who, quote, knew what was good for us in a democracy to
somebody in communism. Would you please comment on the direct ownership of assets by the
individuals employed by a firm.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: The question has to do with the emerging partner of direct
ownership of the assets of a corporation by the workers. Would you comment on what this
trend's implications happen to be?
[01:17:47]
ANGELA DAVIS: I'm not sure whether I understood the other part of the question. And I don't
know whether or not you're posing that as an alternative to socialism. But first of all, I think that
it is important for working people to fight for gains in all areas, on all levels. It's important for
black people, people of color to struggle around all of the manifestations of racism and to
attempt to win victories, knowing of course, realizing that the victories that we win today will be
significant in the last analysis only to the extent that they assist us in moving toward a final
victory which, in my opinion, must be a revolutionary victory, which must mean the overturning
of the capitalist system in this country.
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[01:18:40]
And there is a pattern to demand worker participation. And that's important, although it's not the
solution, of course. Because as long as the economy is controlled by monopolies, by the
corporations, they're never going to fully respond to the needs and the interests of the people who
create the wealth.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: We have questions from the balcony. The young lady right in the
center.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Would you please comment on the Patty Hearst? Do you make any
sense of it at all?
EMMANUEL GILBERT: The lady wants you to comment on the Patty Hearst case, and
plaintively adds, do you make any sense of it at all?
[01:19:30]
ANGELA DAVIS: Well, I'm just as confused as you are, frankly. One thing though that I
would like to comment about, if the newspapers in this country had spent half the space that they
spent on the Patty Hearst case talking about the San Quentin Six, or Delbert Tibbs, or Lolita
Lebrón, or the Wilmington Ten, then I think we would have been getting information that we
need.
It seems to me that there is an attempt on the part of the press to divert our attention from the real
struggles that need to be waged and won. See, she really doesn't have to worry that much, I don't
think. She has the whole Hearst empire behind her! [applause] What about these poor people
who don't even have the money to be able to hire a lawyer? And who find themselves in a
situation where they end up with a court-appointed, a public attorney or a public defender who's
in collusion with the judge.
[01:20:59]
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And this is something that happens over and over and over again. When I was in jail, when I was
in jail, I met a woman who lived next door to me in the cell, in the cell next door to me. She had
been there 18 months. She'd been there 18 months on a murder charge, and she was totally
innocent. They discovered, as a result of a confession by the person who actually committed the
crime that she had nothing to do with it. And they told her that they weren't going to release her
because they were afraid that she might sue them for false arrest.
[01:21:44]
So what they did was try to make a deal with her. If she pled guilty to a lesser crime, attempted
manslaughter, they would release her with time served. But because she refused to plead guilty,
she was still in jail when I was extradited, waiting to go through a trial with a lawyer who was
appointed by the court. And I never found out what happened to her.
But this is the fate of so many thousands of poor people in this country. This is what we have to
be concerned about.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: For those of us who agree with your position, could you give us a
few more concrete ways so that we can start as individuals, tomorrow or this week.
Unfortunately, we're not organizing masses and I think we need more direction as individuals.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: It's a request for tips on what to do if they believe in your position.
[laughter]
[01:23:04]
ANGELA DAVIS: Well, no, I think that this is– I'm sorry, I'm talking about something that I'm
very serious about. Because it's a question of saving the lives of human beings. It's a question of
preventing, trying to prevent some of the violence and dehumanization that's inflicted on so
many people in this country. And I didn't come here just to throw out some ideas and have some
debates and arguments. I came here because I wanted to try to let you know what I feel is going
on. And those of you who feel inspired or motivated to get involved in the struggle, we welcome
you.
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[01:23:51]
As I mentioned before, I am one of the co-chair people of the National Alliance Against Racist
and Political Repression. That's a national organization which we built on the foundation of the
campaign which struggled and won my freedom. I felt very concerned when I was freed, that all
of those people who came out and demonstrated and attended meetings and signed petitions and
wore buttons and bought posters for me, that those people would understand that their mission
wasn't yet accomplished. I was only one out of many, many thousands of victims of injustice in
prison in this country. And we felt the struggle had to continue.
[01:24:42]
And so, we have built a united front movement that consists of people from communists such as
myself, to people like Ron Dellums and John Conyers, who are congress people in Washington,
affiliated with the Democratic Party. It consists of ministers and other political activists, Puerto
Ricans, Chicanos, Asians, Native American Indians, white people. There is a chapter, for the
sister who asked the question in the balcony, here in Boston. And we were told that it was not
possible to distribute literature about the work of the Alliance here in the hall. But I think that
there will be some people on the outside. So if you really want to know what you can do– are
there petitions? There are petitions, for example, that some of the sisters and brothers from the
local chapter of the Alliance– incidentally, there are chapters of the Alliance in over 20, about 21
states in the country now. There are petitions for the Wilmington Ten, for the San Quentin Six.
And I think there's material on many– because I've only spoken about a very minute fraction of
the work that we're involved in.
[01:26:17]
I also want you to know that the honorarium that is being given to me for this meeting will be
used by the Alliance to print literature about the cases, to organize meetings. And we are
incidentally, for any of you who are interested in coming, having a national conference in
Pittsburgh from November 14th through 16th, the weekend of November 14th and 16th. It's going
to be at the University of Pittsburgh. I'd like to invite all of you to attend. I think there may be
some literature on the conference outside as well.
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EMMANUEL GILBERT: Miss Davis, if there is a competing group, lest they claim equal
time in return for that plug, we'll have time for one more question. Who has the most important
question? This young lady had her hand up a long time; please.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Mine's the most important though! [laughter]
EMMANUEL GILBERT: All right, we'll make it two questions. First the young lady, then
you'll have the second one, and that will be it.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Which nation today, if any, is nearest to your political and social
ideal, if it exists. And if so, which country and why?
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Which nation today is closest to your beliefs politically and
socially?
[01:27:47]
ANGELA DAVIS: Well, I think that my remarks made it clear that I am a communist.
Although this evening I came to speak not on behalf of the Communist Party, but on behalf of a
united front campaign, an organization that consists of people who have all kinds of political
differences. But you see, the one thing that we have decided is that repression and racism are
things that affect all of us, regardless of how we feel about the revolution, whether we feel there
should be one, or what kind. And so, we have decided that we put our differences in the closet
for the purpose of building that unity in order to struggle against the things that affect us all.
[01:28:45]
But at the same time, I can point out that I am a communist and I support and feel aligned with
the socialist community of nations. I feel that socialism is something that, of course, is and must
be based on certain fundamental premises; namely, the transformation of the economy by placing
the means of production in the hands of the people by taking them from the hands of the
capitalist minority and placing them in the hands of the people.
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Now, of course, in terms of the actual society that is built in all of its ramifications, that is going
to have to take place on the basis of the history of that country, the traditions of that country, the
culture of that country. And socialism has many faces in terms of what the masses of people do
in their daily lives, their culture, their traditions, their history. There is socialism in Cuba. And of
course, the history of the Cuban people is different from the history of the peoples of the Soviet
Union. And within the Soviet Union, the people of Uzbekistan, for example, who are Asian, have
a different culture and different traditions and different history than the Russians do. So there are
differences that exist from Russia, to Georgia, to Armenia, to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and so
forth.
[01:30:35]
When we build socialism in this country, we are going to have to build socialism on the basis of
the best of the traditions and culture and history of working people in this country – black,
brown, red, yellow and white. [applause]
EMMANUEL GILBERT: And now the gentleman with the ultimate question.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: I want to just raise the name of a young man who was very renown
in athletic circles. His name is Rommie Loudd. Rommie Loudd is well known in this area. He
gave a large part of his life to an organization in this area. Went to Florida and organized a blackowned ball franchise, football. And the effrontery of an uppity black man to do this apparently
has led to– that is his analysis of what has happened to him. He is in jail in Florida now.
[01:31:34]
Now, the question I have is– and also I might mention that the Boston Globe reported recently
that there is a fund on his behalf to which people in this room and people who hear my voice all
over New England can send resources. But my question is–
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Ah, yes, I was curious. [laughter]
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AUDIENCE QUESTION: My question is, number one, has his case come to the attention of
your organization? And if not, would your organization be willing to add his name to the list of
those about whom you're concerned. Thank you so much.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: I don't think I'll repeat that. I think you heard it as clearly as I.
Would you address yourself to it?
[01:32:16]
ANGELA DAVIS: Let me answer by saying that if the case has emerged, I'm certain that the
Florida Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression knows about it and is probably
contributing energies and talents and time to the struggle to free him. Florida is a place that is, at
this point, I think, quite well known for injustices towards black people. Two black men who
were recently released, Pitts and Lee – perhaps you've read about that – spent about 12 years of
their lives, many of them on death row, as a result of a racist conviction that took place when
someone else confessed to the crime; it was a question of a murder. Nine years ago, someone
confessed that he had committed this murder for which Pitts and Lee were convicted. Yet, it has
taken nine long years to have them pardoned by the governor of Florida.
[01:33:34]
There are cases like this all over the country, many right here in Boston. As Malcolm once said,
there is Down South, but there's also Up South and Out South, too. And I think Boston has
demonstrated better than any other place in this country that racism is not confined to a
geographical area. If we don't all begin to concretely contribute something, something, a little
time, a little energy, a little creativity to the campaign, to put an end to this racism, then we can
be sure that there won't be any question about talking about our futures and the futures of our
children and our grandchildren.
Let me thank you, since this is the last question.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Before you go, can I just ask one question? It's not even a question.
It's a criticism towards you.
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EMMANUEL GILBERT: No, no, no.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Are you going to listen or are you going to let me run your show?
EMMANUEL GILBERT: No, I'm not going to listen. [simultaneous conversation] I'm sorry.
You can ask her afterward.
ANGELA DAVIS: I'm sorry, I don't understand the criticism that you have.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Okay, one is that you're here and you're in this place. When you
first came on, you said you thank him for letting him use your auditorium. You come to the
ghetto where you belong and we give you an auditorium to speak from. The people there need
you. They don't need you. [simultaneous conversation]
ANGELA DAVIS: Brother, brother that's where–
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Down with support rule. The businessman, what you got sitting
here–
[01:35:21]
ANGELA DAVIS: Excuse me, nobody said– I'm on my way right now to a meeting where
we're going to talk about what black people and other progressive forces in this city can do to
continue to fight against this racism. But I happen to think– see, I think that it's a tactic of the
ruling class to try to make white people and black people as well feel that white people are
supposed to be racist, you know that it's inherent, that it's something that can't be changed. That's
why I read earlier that quote from Dr. Du Bois who said that people who become the unwilling
victims, the pawns, the agents of racism are doing nothing more than hurting themselves.
[01:36:16]
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And see, I think that white people are going to have to pay an ever-increasing and militant role in
the struggle against racism. Maybe as a result of this meeting. Maybe as a result of this meeting
there will be some white people in this audience who will be courageous enough to go and try to
deal with some of those raw people and try to convey to other white people that they are only
hurting themselves by aligning themselves with the racist and reactionary forces in this country.
All of us need to get together and unite! [applause]
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Thank you very much.
[01:37:05]
ANGELA DAVIS: Thank you.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Thank you very much. The meeting is adjourned.
FRANK FITZMORRIS: Tonight's Ford Hall Forum speaker has been activist and author
Angela Davis. Next week, the Forum's guest will be Jimmy Breslin, the former Boston Globe
and New York Herald Tribune columnist, now an award-winning syndicated columnist and TV
commentator. His topic will be the illusion of power. That's Jimmy Breslin, next time on the
Ford Hall Forum.
This program has come to you from Boston through the facilities of WGBH radio. Technical
supervision was by John Moran.
This is Frank Fitzmorris speaking. And this is the Eastern Public Radio Network.
END OF RECORDING
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34
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
Title: Angela Davis: Organized Struggle Against Racial and Political Repression,” at Ford Hall
Forum.
Recording Date: 05 October 1975
Item Information: Angela Davis: Organized Struggle Against Racial and Political Repression,”
at Ford Hall Forum. Ford Hall Forum Collection, 1908-2013 (MS113.3.1, item 0014) Moakley
Archive, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Digital Versions: audio recording and transcript available at http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net
Copyright Information: Copyright © 1975 Ford Hall Forum.
Recording Summary:
Transcription of a Ford Hall Forum that featured political activist Angela Davis discussing the
work of political organizations, such as the Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, to
combat the systemic racial oppression of African Americans in the United States. She details the
failings of capitalism and the perceived rise of fascism in the US. Davis also discusses Boston’s
racial struggles including the crisis surrounding the desegregation of its public schools.
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MS113.0014 Transcript
Transcript Begins
FRANK FITZMORRIS: From Boston, the Eastern Public Radio Network presents the Ford
Hall Forum, coming to you from Alumni Auditorium at Northeastern University.
Good evening, I'm Frank Fitzmorris, welcoming you to the first meeting of the 68th season of
Ford Hall programs, America's oldest forum of public opinion. Tonight's speaker, activist Angela
Davis.
In just a moment, Forum president Emmanuel Gilbert will introduce Angela Davis for tonight's
talk, titled: “The Organized Struggle Against Racist and Political Repression.”
Now here's Ford Hall president Emmanuel Gilbert.
[00:00:41]
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Just before we get into the main segment of our meeting tonight,
there are a couple of minor announcements. I ask you to bear with me. First of all, I'd like to
express the Ford Hall Forum's appreciation to Northeastern University for making this facility
available to us, and for extending themselves in so many ways to make the meetings possible.
Secondly, I have two regulations to hopefully enforce. One is from Northeastern University, and
that's to ask you to please refrain; there'll be no smoking in the hall. It also says no eating, but I
don't see anybody eating, so I think that's no problem at all to worry about.
[00:01:20]
The second announcement is from the Ford Hall Forum. We would like to ask that there be – I
notice a lot of cameras here in the hall – that there be no flash photography at all. [laughter] If
you're going to take pictures, I hope your equipment is such and your skills are such that you can
operate by whatever light is in the hall. It's a matter of difficulty for the speaker if he or she is
constantly interrupted by the flashing of lights. So I ask you please to bear with us on that.
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[00:01:56]
And the second part of that is, there are no tape recordings to be made. The program is broadcast,
as you well know, and so it's public in that extent. But many of our speakers have requested that
recordings not be made by members of the audience because they have other utilization for their
speech, and these get bootlegged and one thing and another and published elsewhere.
So enough for the announcements. Please bear with us.
Now, greetings and good evening, and welcome to the opening session of our 68th annual season
of the Ford Hall Forum. I'm Emmanuel Gilbert, president of the Forum, and your moderator for
this evening.
[00:02:32]
Now, I mentioned this is our 68th consecutive year. This makes us the oldest continuously
operated public forum in the United States. It's been a lean couple of decades for public forums.
They've had all kinds of problems, many have ceased operation; all of them, this one included,
have had great financial problems. And so, many have fallen by the wayside. So in view of that,
this makes our continued existence, and indeed judging by the audience tonight and the record
numbers of members that we have, it's a most unusual bit of longevity for a forum of this kind.
[00:03:14]
I suppose there are many reasons why this is so, but there are two reasons I'd like to call to your
attention tonight because I think they're most pertinent. One is that the Forum assiduously seeks
out different points of view – some popular, some unpopular, occasionally some bland.
[laughter] But we look for different points of view.
Secondly, all of our speakers who come know that they're here to come and express a point of
view. That's the first half of that commitment to the evening. And the second half is that they
must answer questions from the hall and, in effect, they must defend that point of view. These
are two very basic premises under which the Ford Hall Forum operates.
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[00:03:59]
Now, in a free, open, democratic society, these seem very simple, very basic, and not at all
difficult to understand. And yet, because of these two basic reasons for existence, we've had
some troubles, some troubles lasting for a full 68 years, because nobody really subscribes to this
business of freedom of speech and expression when it pertains to the other point of view.
[00:04:25]
You program somebody from the left and immediately the forum is attacked by people from the
right saying they should not have had this forum. You program somebody liberal, you hear from
the conservatives, and vice versa. You program a women's libber and you hear from the male
chauvinists, who don't identify themselves as such, but they complain. [laughter] There is no
point of view I think that we've ever had that hasn't been attacked, or the Forum hasn't been
attacked for presenting it.
Now, we reject this notion of being opposed to letting a valid point of view being heard and
questioned here from the audience. We seek different points of view and we defend their right to
be heard and to present themselves and to be challenged by the audience.
[00:05:15]
Now, our speaker tonight is an example of this pattern. Miss Angela Davis has been called many
things – a radical, a revolutionary, a murderess, a menace to society – all kinds of things. And
we've heard from people who aren't particularly enamored of any of these descriptions and who
have resented the fact that she's here tonight. Of course, we've had many laudatory calls and
letters and people delighted that she's here to grace the Forum platform. But we've also had
memberships canceled, and funds, which would have come to the Forum, diverted because we
offer her this platform.
[00:05:54]
Nevertheless, that's what the Forum is all about. And we're proud to present her here at the Ford
Hall Forum, regardless of what anybody, in this room or outside, thinks of her views. She's here
to express her views and to defend them. You are here in the hall to hear what she has to say and
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to make her defend them if you don't agree with them. As I said, that's what the Forum is all
about. I think this will give us at least another 68 consecutive years.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, here to tell you her views on the organized struggle against racist
and political opposition, and to answer your questions, I'm proud to present Miss Angela Davis.
[applause]
ANGELA DAVIS: Well, first of all, I'd like to thank the Ford Hall Forum for giving me this
opportunity to address you this evening. I'm speaking on behalf of many people, black, brown,
red, yellow and white, who are involved in the struggle to end racist and political repression.
And this evening I want to focus my remarks in general around the issue of racism and the issue
of repression.
[00:07:41]
But let me begin by relating an incident which happened on the way from the airport a little
while ago. Those of you who have come out of Logan Airport have probably seen that huge
billboard that says "Welcome to Boston, the Cradle of Liberty." It all began here. [laughter]
Well, as we drove into the city, we passed another sign. This sign said "White Power KKK."
And of course, you don't need me to tell you that Boston is a city with some very serious
problems at this moment. And probably it's no comfort to you to realize that the problems facing
this city are the same as those plaguing urban centers all over the country – high rates of
unemployment, deterioration of public services, unbelievable rates of inflation, and a total
inability of the municipal governments to begin to provide just and humane solutions to these
problems. This is becoming the normal status of cities all over the country these days.
[00:09:16]
And as we sit here this evening, enormous numbers of working class men and women find
themselves demoralized, unemployed, hungry. And what kind of a response do they receive
when they attempt to get help from federal and state officials that we're supposed to be able to
count on to represent our interests? Just recently right here in the state of Massachusetts, there
was a cutback to the tune of about $678 million in the welfare budget; $22 million cut in the area
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of mental health; $6.2 million from youth services and daycare; and a $9.5 million slash in the
area of public health. And all of this is going on when the rate of unemployment in the state is
absolutely incredible. The last figure I saw was more than ten percent. And this is what's
happening all over the country, indeed.
Now, our President has been talking about his better idea. [laughter] What is Mr. Gerald
Secondhand Ford's better idea? To veto one bill after another that would create jobs for working
people, to veto one bill after another that would give increased aid to educational programs that
are so sorely needed by the youth of this country. From no section of this country's leadership
have we seen the attempt to formulate any policy that would be designed to offset the effects of
this economic crisis, the effects of this economic crisis on the masses of people in this country.
[00:11:28]
I think it's important that we understand the significance of this crisis. It's not the same kind of
cyclical crisis that capitalism is supposed to be able to weather eventually. It's a general crisis in
the whole system of capitalism. A general crisis that has features that are permanent and
irreversible rather than just temporary.
Consider the concrete effects of this crisis. Do you know there was recently a study done at the
University of Pennsylvania, I think. It was discovered that among black teenagers, particularly
black teenagers who are female, young black women, the rate of unemployment is something
like 65%. And not only is unemployment 65%, but these are young people who not only cannot
find a job today, but they don't have the prospect of finding a job any time in the near future.
And that means that a whole generation, a whole generation of young black people is growing up
without ever having had the experience of being able to find and hold down a job.
[00:13:11]
Now, in the absence of any significant policies to meet the needs of our people at this time of
crisis, those who are in control of the wealth, the masters of monopoly in this country and their
administrative and legislative assistants in the White House and on Capitol Hill, are devising the
most hideous policies of repression known to humanity since the most terrible and most
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frightening days of Hitler. And when I say that fascism is becoming an increasingly dangerous
menace to the people of this country, I'm not exaggerating. I use the term fascism after much
consideration.
[00:14:21]
Policies are developed by ruling circles in this country which have racism as their core and the
dissolution of the unity of working people as their intent. These policies are attempting to not
only impose the burden of this crisis on the shoulders of working people, and particularly black
people and other people of color, but they attempt to destroy the very unity that's necessary in
order to fight back against those policies, against this crisis, this crisis which is created by the
gluttony of monopoly for ever-increasing profits – a gluttony that was denied satisfaction by the
people of Vietnam, the people of Mozambique and Angola, the people of Guinea Bissau, and a
gluttony which has been bitterly fought in other countries throughout Africa, throughout Asia,
throughout Latin America.
What is happening is that this greed for profits – and I don't think any one of us could deny that
the basic motivation of the capitalist system is profits – this greed for profits is being turned
upon, even more severely, the working class of this country as it is being increasingly denied
abroad. I think that we must see the recent incidence of violence and racist hysteria here in this
city and other cities across the country surrounding the use of busing to desegregate the school
system within the context of what is being– of the defeats that are being inflicted upon the
capitalist system throughout the world.
[00:17:00]
We have got to see the issue of busing as an instrument through which the ultra right in this
country is hoping to gain a mass political base, a base that could very well lay the groundwork
for fascism. You see, all this shouting about the rights of parents to send their kids to any school
they choose cannot hide the fact that the hysteria surrounding these issues was whipped up by an
organization that calls itself, what is it, ROAR? And ROAR apparently is a coalition of the Nazi
Party, the Ku Klux Klan, the John Birch Society. And it enjoys the active support of the most
notorious racist in this country George Wallace.
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[00:18:04]
Now, oftentimes I think we fail to understand the dynamics of what is going on in that fight
against school desegregation. We fail to see the incredibly profound racism that is at the core, not
so much in the attitudes of those people who are going out and doing all of that dirty business,
but what is being encouraged by the ruling class in this country. Just recently I was reading a
book, re-reading a book by W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the greatest scholars this country has known.
The book was written in 1935. It's called Black Reconstruction. And in one section he was
attempting to understand what all of those lynch mobs were about. And at that time, of course,
lynching was taking place at an extremely rapid pace all over the South; and not only in the
South, but in places like Pennsylvania as well.
He describes the lynch mobs in a very vivid and, I think, a very revealing manner. And I think
we can learn a lesson about what's happening here in this city, and what's happening in
Louisville, from the words of Dr. Du Bois:
"Before the wide eyes of the mob is ever the shape of fear. Back of the writhing, yelling, crueleyed demons who break, destroy, maim and lynch and burn at the stake, is a knot, large or small,
of normal human beings, and these human beings at heart are desperately afraid of something. Of
what? Of many things, but usually of losing their jobs, being declassed, degraded, or actually
disgraced; of losing their hopes, their savings, their plans for their children; of the actual pangs of
hunger, of dirt, of crime. And of all this, most ubiquitous in modern industrial society is that fear
of unemployment. It is its nucleus of ordinary men that continually gives the mob its initial and
awful impetus. Around this nucleus, to be sure, gather snowball-like all manner of flotsam, filth
and human garbage, and every lewdness of alcohol and current fashion. But all this is the
horrible covering of this inner nucleus of fear."
[00:21:33]
And I think that many of those people who have participated in those demonstrations organized
by ROAR truly fit the description that W.E.B. Du Bois has given of those participants in the
lynch mobs of the first part of this century. They are indeed afraid. Many of them are
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unemployed. Many of them don't know where the money is coming to pay the rent at the end of
the month. Many of them go into a supermarket and can't afford to buy food for decent meals to
satisfy their children. And I think that the government of this country and those who wield
economic power in this country understand that, understand that. And therefore, they do
everything within their power, both subtly and in a blatant manner, to encourage these poor
people to explode their frustration in the faces of young black children who have only tried to get
a decent education. They understand that if these white working class people who are victims of
this crisis that we are all experiencing today are brought to a point where they will focus their
frustrations, their discontent against black people, then they'll forget all about the fact that they
really should be struggling against the Rockefellers and against the Hughes, against the
monopolies of this country. They should be fighting for their jobs. They should be fighting not
against black children, but for a decent education for their children and black children alike.
[applause]
[00:23:59]
I don't feel that it is accidental that at this point in the history of this country we are seeing these
outbreaks and explosions in Boston, that we're seeing them in Louisville and in California. In the
state of California, where I'm living at this moment, white people can get together and run out of
town every single black person. This happened in a place called Taft, California, several months
ago. All the black people who lived and studied in that city were run out.
[00:24:45]
It's no accident that you read in the dailies in this country full-page spreads on the Ku Klux Klan
that describe them as if the initials KKK stood for Kindly Knitting Klub, or something like that.
A number of months ago I read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle entitled, "Women's
Liberation in the Ku Klux Klan." [laughter] And that's funny, but at the same time it's very
frightening. Why is it frightening? Because when you see an organization, a racist, reactionary,
fascist organization such as that, legitimized to a certain extent by the mass media, that makes it
much more palatable, not only to those people who should be struggling against racism, but to
potential converts. And in a sense, it's an open invitation to white people to join the Ku Klux
Klan. I'm sure there are many white people who read those articles who say, Well, you know, if
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the Chronicle or if the New York Times can write such a sympathetic account, then they can't be
that bad. So it wouldn't be such a disgrace to associate myself with the Ku Klux Klan.
[00:26:17]
And I think that if you were able to examine the membership list of the KKK, you would
probably discover that it is rapidly increasing, and probably Boston is the place which can claim
the largest membership in the Ku Klux Klan at this moment, this cradle of liberty. This is where
it all began.
I think that white people must be aware of the way in which racism historically, and especially
today, is not only used as an instrument with which to oppress and continue to hold in bondage
millions of people of color in this country, but it's an instrument that's used against the masses of
white people as well. It's an instrument which is used by the ruling circles in this country to
confuse and confound and divide and prevent the understanding on the part of the masses of
white people in this country that their role is to stand side by side with black people and Puerto
Ricans and Chicanos, Asians, Native American Indians, and fight against an enemy which
oppresses all of us.
[00:28:14]
There are many faces in which this fascist pattern is revealing itself today. It's revealing itself in
ways that often aren't perceived by us as such. And I think that it's important to understand that
fascism doesn't usher itself onto the scene with a blare of trumpets. It insinuates itself slowly,
sometimes imperceptibly. It insinuates itself into our lives with the erosions of one democratic
right after another.
[00:29:07]
And let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. How many of you recognize the
name San Quentin Six? Are there any of you present this evening who know what I'm referring
to when I say the San Quentin Six? Have you been following the course of the trial? I don't
know, I haven't been able to read the newspapers in the Boston area. Has the trial been covered?
Well, of course, for those of you who don't know about the San Quentin Six, this is the trial of
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six black and Latino prisoners which stems from the killing, the murder of George Jackson. And
when I say murder, I'm talking about something that will definitely be proved beyond a
reasonable doubt during the course of this trial.
[00:30:20]
The San Quentin Six are charged with a whole string of crimes, clearly, in my opinion, as a
result of the efforts of the California prison authorities to cover up their responsibility for, and
complicity in the murder of George Jackson. The conditions under which this trial is taking place
are absolutely incredible. And so incredible that when you enter that courtroom, you have the
impression of experiencing a nightmare, and you think that this must be Germany in 1933 and
not the United States of America on the verge of celebrating its Bicentennial.
[00:31:22]
Let me try to describe for you what it is like to attend the trial of six black and Latino men who
were supposed to be presumed innocent. And let me point out, too, that this trial is being held in
the very same courtroom in Marin County where I attended many hearings during the time I was
in jail a number of years ago. The courtroom looks a little bit different now though.
[00:31:51]
In order to get into that trial – and it's supposed to be a public trial – you must go through first
one metal detector. And then you walk over to a podium like this and a policeman stands behind
it and you give him your driver's license. He copies your name and your address, and all of the
information. Then you pose for a police photographer who takes your picture, like you're being
booked into the local county jail. After that, you're frisked by hand, and if you happen to have a
natural, like mine for example, a matron, in an extremely degrading manner, attempts to run her
fingers through your hair. Then you go through another metal detector. Now you have to do all
of this just to get into the courtroom!
Once you get into those courtroom, you discover that the courtroom is divided in half by a
bulletproof shield, a bulletproof wall, plexiglass shield. The spectators are on one side; the
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participants in the trial are on the either side – the judge, the jury, the defendants and the lawyers.
Armed guards stand along the walls of the courtroom.
[00:33:24]
And if this were not already enough, when you look at the defendants, at the brothers, you
discover that they are draped in chains – chains around their waist, their wrists chained to their
waist, their feet are shackled to the floor. And if you get a glimpse of them being brought into the
courtroom, they're brought in by San Quentin guards on leashes, neck cuffs, chains attached to
the neck cuffs.
[00:34:00]
How is it possible? How it is possible for any one of those twelve jurors to feel that someone
must already think they're guilty. Someone must think they're violent. Someone must think
they're dangerous. Otherwise all of this paraphernalia wouldn't be necessary. How can they
possibly receive a fair trial under those conditions?
It's a very strange feeling. It's hard to even convey to you what this is all about. The bulletproof
shield is made out of plexiglass, as I pointed out. It's dark and murky, and it's very thick, so it
tends to distort the faces of the people on the other side.
Oh, I'm sorry. Is everyone able to hear me?
[00:35:08]
As I was saying, the plexiglass tends to distort the faces of the people on the other side. And you
sit there and you watch this judge, who incidentally was Ronald Reagan's financial campaign
manager and was appointed by him afterwards. And you see this man, who has done everything
within his power to set the stage for a conviction of the San Quentin Six. You see him screaming
something out at the lawyers and he moves and his face becomes all distorted and grotesque.
And you really feel that this is a nightmare; it can't possibly be happening.
[00:35:50]
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But it is happening. And it's important for all of us to understand what that means for our lives.
It's not only that the rights of six black and Latino men are being violated in a grotesque and
fascist manner. It's that our rights are also being violated. If they can try these people under those
conditions, that means that any one of us might be charged one day and might be tried under
those conditions, and a conviction would be ensured, you see.
It's very important for us to understand the relationship between the attack on the rights of those
people who are suffering most under the repression that has revealed itself all over the country.
And the potential effect it will have on you and your responsibility to get involved in the
struggle, to push it back before it engulfs all of us.
[00:36:59]
I get sometimes very disturbed and very upset when I don't see masses of people fighting back
against the kind of open and blatant manifestation of repression. I get upset because I know that
there was a time when I was behind those walls and when I realized that my conviction would
also be ensured, it would be guaranteed if large numbers of people, black people, white people,
Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, Asians, Indians, working people, students, ministers, women activists,
political activists, if people in general did not respond and fight back, not only because of what
was happening to me, but what might happen to them tomorrow.
[00:38:06]
In the state of North Carolina, which is probably the most repressive state in this country today,
there are scores of political activists behind walls. There are high school students who are in
prison facing 20-year, 40-year terms because they struggled for black studies programs,
struggled to have the birthday of Martin Luther King celebrated on their high school campuses.
I'm not exaggerating, I'm not exaggerating. Reverend Ben Chavis and his nine co-defendants,
eight black men who were high school students in 1971 and a white woman who was an activist
in the women's movement, they are facing terms of from 10 to 34 years as a result of the
struggles they waged against the racist policies of the school system in North Carolina.
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And I hope that many of you have already heard about the case of Reverend Ben Chavis and the
Wilmington Ten. Because you see, if they can imprison a minister, if they can put a minister in
prison for the rest of his life as a result of his efforts to translate his beliefs, his religious beliefs
into practice, then what can they do to those of us who are talking about organizing masses of
people to build a revolutionary movement so that we can usher into being a society that truly will
respond to the needs and reflect the dreams and aspirations, not of a few greedy capitalists, but of
the masses of people in this country.
[00:40:12]
I think that all of us have a responsibility to participate in this struggle to turn back this fascist
monster that's growing and growing every day. We have to fight against the passage of Senate
Bill 1, which is literally a blueprint for fascism, literally. And I would urge all of you to try to
find out about this bill and read what its provisions are – the death penalty for treason; the
imprisonment of people who advocate the overthrow of the government, of the United States of
America; the refusal to permit demonstrations within sight or sound of a courthouse. All kinds of
provisions are included in this Senate bill.
[00:41:33]
We must struggle, I think, to free the woman, the Puerto Rican woman who is not only the
longest held political prisoner, along with her comrades, in this country, but in the entire Western
hemisphere. Lolita Lebrón has been in prison for over 20 years as a result of her determination to
fight the colonial subjugation of her people in Puerto Rico by the United States government. She
has been offered parole many times, but the conditions of that parole are that she not participate
in any activities, nor associate with any people involved in the movement for Puerto Rican
independence.
[00:42:35]
We must struggle to free a young black man in Florida, who has been sentenced to death as a
result of a frame-up rape charge. And I mention this because I think that it's very important for us
to understand that the victory that was won by Sister Joan Little as a result of the widespread
support she received all over this country must also extend to black men who are the victims of
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the same kind of racism that was inflicted on Joan Little when she was raped by a racist jailer.
You see, historically the use of the rape charge has been used in the very same racist manner
against black men as the rape of black women has been interwoven into the history of our people
in this country.
Perhaps you remember the Scottsboro Boys. Perhaps you remember Emmett Till, who was found
at the bottom of the Tallahatchie River because he had been accused of smiling at a white
woman; a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago who went to Mississippi to visit his relatives.
[00:44:14]
There's a man by Delbert Tibbs who was recently sentenced to death in Florida as a result of a
frame-up rape charge in which he was accused by a young white woman of having raped her and
having killed her companion. To just give you an idea of the incredible inconsistencies in that
case which are, in my opinion, proof beyond any doubt that he's innocent, she described her
attacker at first as a dark-skinned man with pock marks on his face. Delbert Tibbs is very lightskinned, he has a very clear complexion. But she took the stand during the trial and said that his
complexion had lightened several shades since the time she had seen him and had been raped by
him. I mean, I could go on and on; he wasn't anywhere near the incident. He was 275 miles away
when it happened. He was traveling through Florida. He's a novelist and he was trying to gather
material for a novel about the South and was hitchhiking and happened to be picked up by the
police. He was an unknown black man and the easiest victim, the easiest scapegoat for that racist
hysteria that was generated as a result of this woman's contentions that she had been raped.
[00:45:52]
I don't want to spend very much more time speaking because I know that many of you
undoubtedly have questions that you'd like to ask and it's getting late. So let me conclude with
first a poem and then a quotation from a great figure of black history in this country. The poem
was written by Brother Delbert Tibbs, recently, as he sits on death row in Florida. And it's called
"A Poem."
[00:46:44]
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I need a poem, I need a poem, a master poem.
Once and for all I need a poem to destroy poetry and break these iron bars.
A poem to make stars weep, need a poem, a poem
for troubling the sleep of the chained,
Some words and strikes of magic to be heard through all the world.
[00:47:24]
I hope there are those of you who will leave this evening determined that we, the people of this
country, united and strong, can truly become those strikes of magic that Brother Tibbs is seeking.
If we are truly, honestly, sincerely interested in defending our rights and our liberties, our lives,
and the lives of those who at this point in the history of this country are suffering for all of us,
those who are doing all of the suffering – the Delbert Tibbs, the Wilmington Ten, the San
Quentin Six, the Lolita Lebróns – then we must recognize that we must struggle.
[00:48:23]
As Frederick Douglass said in 1857, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who
profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation want crops without plowing up the ground.
They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its
many waters. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out
just what any people will quietly submit to. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to
and you will have found the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon
them, and these will until they are resisted with either words or blows or with both."
Thank you. [applause]
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Thank you very much, Miss Davis. And now, we will enter the
second portion of our program, the questions from the floor. For the benefit of those of you who
are here for the first time, may I ask that you raise your hand if you have a question and I will
acknowledge them. I'll try and go around the room and give some kind of a distribution to the
questioners. And then, direct your question, please, to me. I will repeat them so it can be picked
up by the radio microphone, and then Miss Davis will answer the questions.
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Let's start on this side of the room first. Yes, sir? Will you please stand? No, the gentleman in the
back there, would you please stand?
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Miss Davis, if the actions of ROAR in Boston are simply
manifestations, as you claim, of the ruling circles of the United States, how then would you
explain the determined effort of the government at the city, state and federal level through their
police power to ensure the safety of schoolchildren in Boston?
[00:51:08]
EMMANUEL GILBERT: The gentleman asked if you would attempt to explain the combined
efforts of city and state marshals to ensure the safety of the children and the desegregation
problem if, as you claim, the actions of ROAR are behind it all and not particularly meaningful.
[00:51:31]
ANGELA DAVIS: I remember an incident which took place last year having to do with the
President of the United States of America. At the time that the school desegregation was ordered,
there were appeals that were directly made to Mr. Ford to immediately send federal troops to
guarantee the safety of the schoolchildren who would be attending the newly desegregated
schools. At that time, Mr. Ford made a statement on national television before millions of people
in this country. He made a statement to the effect that he disagreed with the court decision. Do
you remember that? He said he disagreed with the decision, the order with respect to
desegregation. And so what if he disagreed with it? Anyone who has read a civics book, even a
fourth grade student knows that the way in which the government in this country is supposed to
function has to do with the division powers, and that the executive has no right to overrule
decisions of the judiciary, but, rather, is supposed to execute those decisions.
[00:53:11]
Now, not only did he not order that troops, federal troops be brought in– and see, I think that
could have headed off the whole thing before it even exploded, you see. But by making the
statement that he disagreed with the court decision, he was saying "right on" to all of those
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reactionary and racist forces that tried to whip up this hysteria in Boston. And I think that
President Ford's statement, more than anything else in this country, is what was responsible for
all of that racist violence here in Boston. [applause]
[00:53:58]
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Miss Davis, I'm confused about what you're talking about, the main
issues here tonight. You came here to talk about racism and oppression. Along in your speaking
several times you linked capitalism with fascism. Now I'm a student, and I seek truth, and I seek
knowledge. I've always been caught and I've always learned through my own experiences–
EMMANUEL GILBERT: What is the question, please? [laughter]
AUDIENCE QUESTION: How is capitalism, which is known as a free market, free economy,
means individual rights, i.e.; and fascism, which is known under the facade of individual
freedom but is controlled by one controlling factor – take one instance, Italy–
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Will you please ask the question?
AUDIENCE QUESTION: yes. I'm confused as to how you link capitalism and fascism
together. It seems to be a contradiction in terms.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: The gentleman asked how you link capitalism and fascism together
in your talk.
[00:54:53]
ANGELA DAVIS: Maybe next week he would like to come and deliver a lecture here.
[laughter] But let me seriously try to respond to that question. First of all, I think that it's very
clear that capitalism is not an economy-based freedom or liberty. Are you listening to me? You
don't appear to want to even hear the answer.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: [inaudible] because all throughout the history of man, capitalism–
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ANGELA DAVIS: All right, he says that I've already turned him off. I am trying to explain to
you.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: You've had your question. Now let her answer.
[00:55:43]
ANGELA DAVIS: First of all, capitalism may indeed be a system which allows certain people
certain liberties and certain freedoms. But I think that unfortunately those people constitute the
very smallest minority in this country. They constitute the Rockefellers, the Duponts, the
Hughes, the corporations. I could name them probably if had about five minutes, less than that, I
could name all of those corporations that control the vast majority of the wealth in this country.
[00:56:20]
Now, what does it mean in general for working people? They say that working people are free.
That's true, they're free to get a job and make some money. But what actually happens? What are
the inner dynamics of exploitation? See, because when you talk about capitalism as an
exploitative system, that is not, in my opinion, a moral judgment about capitalism, it's a
descriptive term. And it's very interesting how, with the development historically of capitalism,
the whole character of the labor of working people underwent a transformation. If you are a
worker and you go and work on the assembly line at an auto plant, for example, you aren't paid
for the work that you do. You aren't paid for the work that you do. You aren't paid for building
those cars. You are paid for your ability to work. You're paid for your labor power. And those of
you who have studied Marx Das Kapital will understand that distinction.
[00:57:41]
You're paid by the capitalist so that you will be able to come back and work the next day. How is
it that all of these thousands, billions and billions of dollars of profit would come about if it
didn't have something to do– I mean, Rockefeller, with all of the money that he has, has he ever
done an honest day's work in his life? He sits in a– who does all of that work? It has to be
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coming from somewhere. And working people simply are not compensated for what they
produce. Working people are paid just enough to survive.
[00:58:24]
Marx makes that very clear when he says that instead of being paid for their labor, instead of
being paid for what they produce, they are paid for their labor power, their ability to work. And
that means that the capitalist owes the worker – and these are written in to the dynamics of
capitalism – only enough in order for that worker and his or her family to survive.
[00:58:51]
Now, going on to the question – and I'm not going to speak very much longer – the question of
the relationship of fascism and capitalism. You see, I think that fascism is a reaction, a response
of a capitalist ruling class. When the drive for profit becomes so severe that the rights of people,
not only in terms of their economic rights, must be severely violated, but they must be prevented
from struggling, prevented from organizing for movements for their freedom.
And if you look at what's happening across the globe, capitalism is being rejected more and more
and more by ever-greater masses of people in this world. First of all, you have to consider that
one-third of the people, one-third of the people who inhabit this globe live and are building
socialist societies. That's one third; I mean, that's one-third of all the people in the world. And
then if you look at Africa, if you look at Asia, if you look at Latin America, you discover that
those countries that have received, and fought for, achieved their independence recently have
understood there's no way in the world that they're going to be able to respond to the needs of the
people of their country if they continue to adhere to the imperialism, if they continue to be a part
of the imperialist order, if they continue to try to talk about building capitalism. They understand
that capitalism is exploitative inherently. And it only is able to function in the interest of a very
small minority of people.
[01:01:00]
What did the people of Guinea Bissau do when they proclaimed their independence? They said
they were going to build a socialist society. What were the people of Vietnam fighting about?
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They were fighting about their right to build socialism. What was the struggle in Chile all about?
And why did not only the fascists inside Chile respond so violently and with the bloodiest coup
of this recent period? Why did people like Kissinger join them? Why did ITT join them? Why
did the Pentagon join them? Because they understood, first of all, those people who voted to
enter upon a socialist revolutionary process understood what they wanted. They said, for
example, We don't believe that Kennecott Copper and Anaconda Copper have the right to come
here and force us to slave in these mines and then take the profits that we make for them and put
it in their pockets 3000 miles away. They said that they felt they had the right to utilize the
products of their labor, the resources of their land in order to satisfy their needs to build schools,
to build housing, to have free medical care. I mean, those kinds of basic things.
[01:02:28]
Capitalism can't do it because it's not profitable. It's not profitable to have free childcare centers.
Nobody makes any money off of free childcare centers. That's why you don't see this society
responding to the needs of its people. It's not profitable to have free healthcare for everyone. It's
not profitable to have free education.
One more point. And that point is that at a time when it becomes increasingly difficult for
capitalism to function smoothly as a system, to function while putatively respecting the
democratic rights of the citizens of the country in question, at this particular point in the history
of capitalism, it is not possible. Because working people are more and more conscious; black
people, people of color are more and more conscious of the need to struggle for liberation. And
then the response, the desperate response becomes a fascist response. And that is the fascist
kernel that I think exists in this country today in which we must struggle against if we do not
want it to grow like a cancer and mushroom into a full-blown capitalist system.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: I would suggest to the audience that they attempt to confuse our
speaker by keeping their questions clear, curt and concise. She will no doubt retaliate by making
her responses tight and terse and taut. [laughter] Okay, from the center of the room. Yes, miss.
[01:04:25]
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AUDIENCE QUESTION: You speak as if there is a conspiracy, a definite, constructed
conspiracy, which is bad. This consists of the fractious racists. How does your position differ
from the claims made on the left that there is a conspiracy? What proof do you have that there is
a real conspiracy any more so than the ones on the left say there is a communist conspiracy?
EMMANUEL GILBERT: The questioner makes the point that the left or the right, they both
contend they're a conspiracy. How do you document your claims?
[01:05:03]
ANGELA DAVIS: Well, let me ask you something. Did you by any chance see the Watergate
hearings? [laughter/applause] Have you by any chance been following the Senate select hearings
on the intelligence community? Have you by any chance heard that not too long ago there was a
test in the subways of New York City to determine just how swiftly and effectively it would be
possible to saturate the subway system of New York City with poison gas? Yeah, didn't you all–
you mean that in this cradle of liberty the newspaper didn't report that this was one of the results
of one of the hearings that took place? Well, I don't think I have to go any further. I could give
you many, many, many, many more examples of that conspiracy. But I don't think I need to go
any further. Do I?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: No!
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Miss Davis, can I usurp a questioner's prerogative and ask, if this is
proof, if this capitalist press, which obviously must be suspect, reports it, what proof is that of
any fact? [laughter/applause]
[01:06:37]
ANGELA DAVIS: Well, I'm not sure whether that's meant to be a philosophical question as to
how we go about obtaining our knowledge about reality. But I think that we can be sure that
what we have learned so far is probably not the truth, in the sense that it's just the tip of an
iceberg. I think we can be sure that the problems with having to rely on the capitalist press have
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to do with their covering up many of the things that we need to know in order to really
understand what is happening in this country. And they've tried to cover it up.
[01:07:34]
I can remember, a number of years ago, we used to say there was a conspiracy against the Black
Panther Party because we thought that we could see the evidence in those attacks that took place
in city after city after city, places where Mark Clark and Fred Hampton were murdered as they
lay sleeping in their beds and a situation was created so that it would appear as if they had been
the ones to do the shooting and the police had been defending themselves. And we said that was
a conspiracy because the facts pointed to that. It's only now, of course, a number of years later
that, as a result of an investigation, it has come out that there was indeed a conspiracy that was
led by J. Edgar Hoover and that involved police departments all over this country to destroy the
Black Panther Party. [applause]
AUDIENCE QUESTION: I've noticed a movement from Boston and they go by the name of
Tactical Police [Force]. I asked somebody what they were about and someone told me they were
here to help desegregate the schools. Now, that answer didn't make too much sense to me. I'd
like to know what you think about that.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: The Tactical Police allege that they're here to help the youngsters
get to school, to desegregate the schools. That answer didn't make much sense. She asked you to
comment on that aspect.
[01:08:57]
ANGELA DAVIS: Well, you see, I mentioned, I think, during the course of my remarks that
there were many, many more examples of what I called an increasingly fascist pattern in this
country. And one of them is the proliferation of special counterinsurgency forces and police
departments all across the country. The tactical police incidentally in police departments
throughout the country have been trained by the FBI. In California, there was recently – and we
read this in the bourgeois press – that the FBI came out and trained special sectors of the police
departments of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and a lot of small towns in the Bay Area.
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[01:09:54]
The special weapons and tactical squad– you all probably see that TV program that's called
SWAT. You know, most of you've seen that, haven't you? Well, see, I was incidentally
personally present at the debut of SWAT in Los Angeles. Do you know when that took place,
when they first were utilized by the police department? To attack the Black Panther Party. They
maintain that they had a warrant to deliver to a member of the Black Panther Party and they
came to deliver this warrant with the force of 600 policemen, led by the SWAT squad. They had
a helicopter. They had dynamite. They had machine guns. They had bulletproof vests. This was
in order to deliver a warrant. And they proceeded to destroy the offices and to wound –
fortunately no one was killed – many of the people who were inside.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: I don't think it's necessary to defend the need for revolution. The
question is, when's the next time you're going to be in Boston and be in Roxbury where you don't
have to defend revolution and you don't have to have questions asked about the need. [applause]
EMMANUEL GILBERT: The gentleman asks, when are you going to be in Boston next and
in Roxbury with a less hostile audience?
[01:11:40]
ANGELA DAVIS: I think the point that the brother makes is very important. Because black
people and people of color in this country know that something has to be done. They know that
we can't live this way very much longer. When you walk in the streets of Harlem on a
Wednesday afternoon and you see the streets just as crowded as they would be on a Sunday
afternoon because all of those people are not able to get work, you know that something has to
change. And when you've experienced hundreds of years of racism in this country, and when you
know that the only way we've survived, the only way we've made it to where we are now is
through struggle. Like Frederick Douglass said in 1837, that's the only way we've been able to
make it this far.
[01:12:39]
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I think though, to further answer, I'm probably going to be in Boston some time soon. This is the
first trip I've made in about a year, but I probably will be back. And you can be sure that I will
visit with my sisters and brothers in Roxbury. I think it's important for white people in this
country to understand that if they stand idly by while black people, people of color are maimed
and murdered and subjugated to death, then it's going to happen to them as well. [applause]
Let me remind you of that statement that was made by that Protestant theologian who emerged
after the defeat of fascism, what did he say? He said, "First they came for the communists, but I
wasn't a communist, so I did nothing. And then they came for the Jews, but I wasn't a Jew, so I
did nothing. Then they came for the trade unionists, but I wasn't a trade unionist, so I did
nothing." He went all the way down the line and he said, "And finally they came for me. And
when I looked around, there was nobody left to help." [applause]
AUDIENCE QUESTION: In connection with your feeling that fascism has insidious ways of
insinuating itself among us, I wonder if you could comment on the increasing romanticism of
organized crime, particularly among the middle class.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Could you comment on the increased popularity or fascination held
by organized crime, particularly among the middle class?
ANGELA DAVIS: I think that such movies as The Godfather are probably descriptive not only
of organized crime, but of the ruling class in this country. I mean, crime has always been a part
of the ruling class.
[01:15:07]
Let me just give you an example. All of these illegal contributions that were made by these
corporations, wasn't that crime? Not only crime in the sense of making illegal contributions and
thus buying the presidency, but crime in the sense of an attack on the democratic rights and
liberties of all the people in this country. Richard Nixon wasn't elected by a mandate. His
presidency was bought for him.
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[01:15:49]
And then what happens? It's important to continue down the line and ask yourself what happens
to these criminals, these ruling class criminals. Do they go to prison? I've been in three jails and I
never saw a person who wasn't poor, regardless of what color they were. Those ruling class
criminals who do end up going to jail, well, they go to these country club prisons like
Allenwood, where they can play golf and play tennis and ride horses.
But you see, it's the class question, that's the point. It's the class question, and working class
people are the ones who are the victims, always.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Would you care to comment on a new system that seems to be
evolving, where the worker would own, participate in the direct management of a corporation or
a company, would take over the assets of a company and would therefore avoid changing the
bureaucracy in a fascist democracy for the bureaucracy that has existed in a communist state. It
would be like going from somebody who, quote, knew what was good for us in a democracy to
somebody in communism. Would you please comment on the direct ownership of assets by the
individuals employed by a firm.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: The question has to do with the emerging partner of direct
ownership of the assets of a corporation by the workers. Would you comment on what this
trend's implications happen to be?
[01:17:47]
ANGELA DAVIS: I'm not sure whether I understood the other part of the question. And I don't
know whether or not you're posing that as an alternative to socialism. But first of all, I think that
it is important for working people to fight for gains in all areas, on all levels. It's important for
black people, people of color to struggle around all of the manifestations of racism and to
attempt to win victories, knowing of course, realizing that the victories that we win today will be
significant in the last analysis only to the extent that they assist us in moving toward a final
victory which, in my opinion, must be a revolutionary victory, which must mean the overturning
of the capitalist system in this country.
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[01:18:40]
And there is a pattern to demand worker participation. And that's important, although it's not the
solution, of course. Because as long as the economy is controlled by monopolies, by the
corporations, they're never going to fully respond to the needs and the interests of the people who
create the wealth.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: We have questions from the balcony. The young lady right in the
center.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Would you please comment on the Patty Hearst? Do you make any
sense of it at all?
EMMANUEL GILBERT: The lady wants you to comment on the Patty Hearst case, and
plaintively adds, do you make any sense of it at all?
[01:19:30]
ANGELA DAVIS: Well, I'm just as confused as you are, frankly. One thing though that I
would like to comment about, if the newspapers in this country had spent half the space that they
spent on the Patty Hearst case talking about the San Quentin Six, or Delbert Tibbs, or Lolita
Lebrón, or the Wilmington Ten, then I think we would have been getting information that we
need.
It seems to me that there is an attempt on the part of the press to divert our attention from the real
struggles that need to be waged and won. See, she really doesn't have to worry that much, I don't
think. She has the whole Hearst empire behind her! [applause] What about these poor people
who don't even have the money to be able to hire a lawyer? And who find themselves in a
situation where they end up with a court-appointed, a public attorney or a public defender who's
in collusion with the judge.
[01:20:59]
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And this is something that happens over and over and over again. When I was in jail, when I was
in jail, I met a woman who lived next door to me in the cell, in the cell next door to me. She had
been there 18 months. She'd been there 18 months on a murder charge, and she was totally
innocent. They discovered, as a result of a confession by the person who actually committed the
crime that she had nothing to do with it. And they told her that they weren't going to release her
because they were afraid that she might sue them for false arrest.
[01:21:44]
So what they did was try to make a deal with her. If she pled guilty to a lesser crime, attempted
manslaughter, they would release her with time served. But because she refused to plead guilty,
she was still in jail when I was extradited, waiting to go through a trial with a lawyer who was
appointed by the court. And I never found out what happened to her.
But this is the fate of so many thousands of poor people in this country. This is what we have to
be concerned about.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: For those of us who agree with your position, could you give us a
few more concrete ways so that we can start as individuals, tomorrow or this week.
Unfortunately, we're not organizing masses and I think we need more direction as individuals.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: It's a request for tips on what to do if they believe in your position.
[laughter]
[01:23:04]
ANGELA DAVIS: Well, no, I think that this is– I'm sorry, I'm talking about something that I'm
very serious about. Because it's a question of saving the lives of human beings. It's a question of
preventing, trying to prevent some of the violence and dehumanization that's inflicted on so
many people in this country. And I didn't come here just to throw out some ideas and have some
debates and arguments. I came here because I wanted to try to let you know what I feel is going
on. And those of you who feel inspired or motivated to get involved in the struggle, we welcome
you.
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[01:23:51]
As I mentioned before, I am one of the co-chair people of the National Alliance Against Racist
and Political Repression. That's a national organization which we built on the foundation of the
campaign which struggled and won my freedom. I felt very concerned when I was freed, that all
of those people who came out and demonstrated and attended meetings and signed petitions and
wore buttons and bought posters for me, that those people would understand that their mission
wasn't yet accomplished. I was only one out of many, many thousands of victims of injustice in
prison in this country. And we felt the struggle had to continue.
[01:24:42]
And so, we have built a united front movement that consists of people from communists such as
myself, to people like Ron Dellums and John Conyers, who are congress people in Washington,
affiliated with the Democratic Party. It consists of ministers and other political activists, Puerto
Ricans, Chicanos, Asians, Native American Indians, white people. There is a chapter, for the
sister who asked the question in the balcony, here in Boston. And we were told that it was not
possible to distribute literature about the work of the Alliance here in the hall. But I think that
there will be some people on the outside. So if you really want to know what you can do– are
there petitions? There are petitions, for example, that some of the sisters and brothers from the
local chapter of the Alliance– incidentally, there are chapters of the Alliance in over 20, about 21
states in the country now. There are petitions for the Wilmington Ten, for the San Quentin Six.
And I think there's material on many– because I've only spoken about a very minute fraction of
the work that we're involved in.
[01:26:17]
I also want you to know that the honorarium that is being given to me for this meeting will be
used by the Alliance to print literature about the cases, to organize meetings. And we are
incidentally, for any of you who are interested in coming, having a national conference in
Pittsburgh from November 14th through 16th, the weekend of November 14th and 16th. It's going
to be at the University of Pittsburgh. I'd like to invite all of you to attend. I think there may be
some literature on the conference outside as well.
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MS113.0014 Transcript
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Miss Davis, if there is a competing group, lest they claim equal
time in return for that plug, we'll have time for one more question. Who has the most important
question? This young lady had her hand up a long time; please.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Mine's the most important though! [laughter]
EMMANUEL GILBERT: All right, we'll make it two questions. First the young lady, then
you'll have the second one, and that will be it.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Which nation today, if any, is nearest to your political and social
ideal, if it exists. And if so, which country and why?
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Which nation today is closest to your beliefs politically and
socially?
[01:27:47]
ANGELA DAVIS: Well, I think that my remarks made it clear that I am a communist.
Although this evening I came to speak not on behalf of the Communist Party, but on behalf of a
united front campaign, an organization that consists of people who have all kinds of political
differences. But you see, the one thing that we have decided is that repression and racism are
things that affect all of us, regardless of how we feel about the revolution, whether we feel there
should be one, or what kind. And so, we have decided that we put our differences in the closet
for the purpose of building that unity in order to struggle against the things that affect us all.
[01:28:45]
But at the same time, I can point out that I am a communist and I support and feel aligned with
the socialist community of nations. I feel that socialism is something that, of course, is and must
be based on certain fundamental premises; namely, the transformation of the economy by placing
the means of production in the hands of the people by taking them from the hands of the
capitalist minority and placing them in the hands of the people.
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MS113.0014 Transcript
Now, of course, in terms of the actual society that is built in all of its ramifications, that is going
to have to take place on the basis of the history of that country, the traditions of that country, the
culture of that country. And socialism has many faces in terms of what the masses of people do
in their daily lives, their culture, their traditions, their history. There is socialism in Cuba. And of
course, the history of the Cuban people is different from the history of the peoples of the Soviet
Union. And within the Soviet Union, the people of Uzbekistan, for example, who are Asian, have
a different culture and different traditions and different history than the Russians do. So there are
differences that exist from Russia, to Georgia, to Armenia, to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and so
forth.
[01:30:35]
When we build socialism in this country, we are going to have to build socialism on the basis of
the best of the traditions and culture and history of working people in this country – black,
brown, red, yellow and white. [applause]
EMMANUEL GILBERT: And now the gentleman with the ultimate question.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: I want to just raise the name of a young man who was very renown
in athletic circles. His name is Rommie Loudd. Rommie Loudd is well known in this area. He
gave a large part of his life to an organization in this area. Went to Florida and organized a blackowned ball franchise, football. And the effrontery of an uppity black man to do this apparently
has led to– that is his analysis of what has happened to him. He is in jail in Florida now.
[01:31:34]
Now, the question I have is– and also I might mention that the Boston Globe reported recently
that there is a fund on his behalf to which people in this room and people who hear my voice all
over New England can send resources. But my question is–
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Ah, yes, I was curious. [laughter]
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MS113.0014 Transcript
AUDIENCE QUESTION: My question is, number one, has his case come to the attention of
your organization? And if not, would your organization be willing to add his name to the list of
those about whom you're concerned. Thank you so much.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: I don't think I'll repeat that. I think you heard it as clearly as I.
Would you address yourself to it?
[01:32:16]
ANGELA DAVIS: Let me answer by saying that if the case has emerged, I'm certain that the
Florida Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression knows about it and is probably
contributing energies and talents and time to the struggle to free him. Florida is a place that is, at
this point, I think, quite well known for injustices towards black people. Two black men who
were recently released, Pitts and Lee – perhaps you've read about that – spent about 12 years of
their lives, many of them on death row, as a result of a racist conviction that took place when
someone else confessed to the crime; it was a question of a murder. Nine years ago, someone
confessed that he had committed this murder for which Pitts and Lee were convicted. Yet, it has
taken nine long years to have them pardoned by the governor of Florida.
[01:33:34]
There are cases like this all over the country, many right here in Boston. As Malcolm once said,
there is Down South, but there's also Up South and Out South, too. And I think Boston has
demonstrated better than any other place in this country that racism is not confined to a
geographical area. If we don't all begin to concretely contribute something, something, a little
time, a little energy, a little creativity to the campaign, to put an end to this racism, then we can
be sure that there won't be any question about talking about our futures and the futures of our
children and our grandchildren.
Let me thank you, since this is the last question.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Before you go, can I just ask one question? It's not even a question.
It's a criticism towards you.
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MS113.0014 Transcript
EMMANUEL GILBERT: No, no, no.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Are you going to listen or are you going to let me run your show?
EMMANUEL GILBERT: No, I'm not going to listen. [simultaneous conversation] I'm sorry.
You can ask her afterward.
ANGELA DAVIS: I'm sorry, I don't understand the criticism that you have.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Okay, one is that you're here and you're in this place. When you
first came on, you said you thank him for letting him use your auditorium. You come to the
ghetto where you belong and we give you an auditorium to speak from. The people there need
you. They don't need you. [simultaneous conversation]
ANGELA DAVIS: Brother, brother that's where–
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Down with support rule. The businessman, what you got sitting
here–
[01:35:21]
ANGELA DAVIS: Excuse me, nobody said– I'm on my way right now to a meeting where
we're going to talk about what black people and other progressive forces in this city can do to
continue to fight against this racism. But I happen to think– see, I think that it's a tactic of the
ruling class to try to make white people and black people as well feel that white people are
supposed to be racist, you know that it's inherent, that it's something that can't be changed. That's
why I read earlier that quote from Dr. Du Bois who said that people who become the unwilling
victims, the pawns, the agents of racism are doing nothing more than hurting themselves.
[01:36:16]
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MS113.0014 Transcript
And see, I think that white people are going to have to pay an ever-increasing and militant role in
the struggle against racism. Maybe as a result of this meeting. Maybe as a result of this meeting
there will be some white people in this audience who will be courageous enough to go and try to
deal with some of those raw people and try to convey to other white people that they are only
hurting themselves by aligning themselves with the racist and reactionary forces in this country.
All of us need to get together and unite! [applause]
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Thank you very much.
[01:37:05]
ANGELA DAVIS: Thank you.
EMMANUEL GILBERT: Thank you very much. The meeting is adjourned.
FRANK FITZMORRIS: Tonight's Ford Hall Forum speaker has been activist and author
Angela Davis. Next week, the Forum's guest will be Jimmy Breslin, the former Boston Globe
and New York Herald Tribune columnist, now an award-winning syndicated columnist and TV
commentator. His topic will be the illusion of power. That's Jimmy Breslin, next time on the
Ford Hall Forum.
This program has come to you from Boston through the facilities of WGBH radio. Technical
supervision was by John Moran.
This is Frank Fitzmorris speaking. And this is the Eastern Public Radio Network.
END OF RECORDING
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