Angela Davis

Angela Davis stands in the parking lot of the Marin County Courthouse, a civic center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, looking toward the jail where she spent a year in solitary confinement. Charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy after the 1970 courthouse rebellion, simply because the guns used were registered in her name, she faced three capital crimes while Governor Ronald Reagan and President Richard Nixon made clear they wanted her executed. She credits her survival to a graduate student’s habit of living the life of the mind, and her freedom to a mass movement: a bail campaign she voted against, Aretha Franklin’s promise to post her bail, and a white farmer from Fresno who put up his entire farm to free her, only to have the Ku Klux Klan attack it.

TRANSCRIPT:

Tania Ketenjian:
Hello and welcome to Sight Unseen. My name is Tania Ketenjian, and I'm your host. Sight Unseen is a half-hour weekly program presenting candid conversations with the artists and thinkers of our time. This week, part 1 of a 3-part series on author, activist, speaker, professor, Communist Party candidate, socialist, and philosopher Angela Davis. I had the honor of spending the day with Professor Davis as she took me to 3 places in the Bay Area that are of significance to her and her life. Today we will hear about the first place she took me to, the Marin County Courthouse. As you will discover in this conversation, the Marin County Courthouse is of great importance to Angela Davis because it is the place where where she was held in solitary confinement for nearly 2 years when she was accused of kidnapping, conspiracy, and murder.

You will hear the story of how that transpired early in the show. Angela Davis became a professor at the University of California in Los Angeles at the age of 26. She has written dozens of books, including Women, Race, and Class, Are Prisons Obsolete?, The Meaning of Freedom, and most recently, an annotated and critical edition of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. She is one of the most important thinkers today and continues to fight for prisoners' rights and the abolishment of the current prison system. She travels the world speaking about freedom and the necessity for our systems to change. Here we are standing in the parking lot of the Marin County Courthouse, where Angela Davis looked out upon for 2 years of her life 40 years ago. Please stay tuned on this week's Sight Unseen.

Angela Davis:
We turned on what is now known as Judge Haley Drive. Judge Haley is the judge who unfortunately lost his life during what we call the Marin County Courthouse Rebellion in 1970 when Jonathan Jackson, the brother of George Jackson, who was a key figure in the case called the Soledad Brothers. Jonathan Jackson entered the courthouse with a number of weapons and compelled the judge and the jury to come out to the parking lot here. There were San Quentin prison guards because the case that was being tried in the courthouse involved a number of San Quentin prisoners. So the San Quentin guards had accompanied them. Apparently, and this is what we were able to determine during the course of my trial, the San Quentin guards were the ones responsible for all of the deaths, because they simply shot into the van where Jonathan had brought— well, it was the judge, a couple of jurors, and 3 prisoners: James McClain, William Christmas, and Ruchell Magee.

Ruchell Magee is the only one who survived, and he was my co-defendant. In the trial that took place eventually in 1972. I was implicated because the weapons that Jonathan Jackson used were registered in my name, even though I was nowhere near the area. By virtue of the fact that they were registered in my name, I was deemed an accomplice. And in California, accomplices are full-fledged participants. And so I was charged with murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy.

Tania Ketenjian:
And that happened right here in this courthouse?

Angela Davis:
Yeah, you know, it's— I mean, it's really interesting because I never— I was never in the parking lot where it happened, but I can't tell you where it happened because I, first of all, I was not there. And while I did have many pre-trial hearings here, my only view of this area was from a window in that direction, which is where the jail is located.

Tania Ketenjian:
And which is where you, you lived for some time.

Angela Davis:
I spent about 12 months in the jail here in Marin County, in this civic center which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, although I couldn't have— I couldn't appreciate the architecture during the time I was actually living inside the jail.

Tania Ketenjian:
The whole reason, the whole thing that brought you to jail, this is maybe one of the first times you're actually in the place where that crime that happened. Right now, today, is that one of those first times?

Angela Davis:
Well, I did— I have been back in the intervening years. I did attend the trial of the Soledad Brothers and the trial of someone else who who was connected with George Jackson here. But this is certainly the very first time I've stood in the parking lot in this way and imagined what happened 40 years ago.

Tania Ketenjian:
And it's remarkable that it has been 40 years. From the outside, you know, Frank Lloyd Wright is a very well-respected architect. I would have never known that that was an actual jail. What was the environment of that incarcerated space?

Angela Davis:
Well, I was in solitary confinement virtually the entire time I was here. So we're talking about 12 months in which I lived in a solitary cell. After protesting, eventually I was allowed to spend a little time, for a short period, in the Area where the rest of the women were being held. But the vast majority of the time I was here, I was, I was in one cell for sleeping and eating, and they would take me to another cell, which is where all of my books were. So I worked in that cell.

Tania Ketenjian:
Do you ever see that time of solitary confinement as professionally, as you were saying, you worked there, as a fruitful time? Because we get so distracted by our lives and everything around us. I mean, it sounds like sort of a subversive question, but—

Angela Davis:
Well, I mean, it is. It's an interesting question because I did recognize during the time I was in jail, and of the 16 months I was in jail, I think I was in solitary confinement for 15 months. And I realized that I was able to cope with that, with the conditions of solitary confinement, much better probably than most because, because of my background as a student. And so I realized that I You know, I was able to avoid insanity, which is often what happens to people when they're shut up under those kinds of conditions for very long periods of time. I realized that my background as a graduate student spending many, many, many hours alone reading and writing was very helpful.

And since then, it has become clear to me that people who survive long periods of time— I'm talking about years in prison— are those who are able to live the life of the mind and those who are able to achieve a certain measure of freedom through their intellectual work. There's this sign that says Marin County Jail, and there are some of the guards, it looks like it. Well, see, the jail is actually located there, but there's a long underground corridor that runs from this door. This is where prisoners are brought in and out. I can remember coming through that door many times.

Tania Ketenjian:
In 1970, was this sort of a place on the map? For lack of a better term, before Angela Davis came on the scene?

Angela Davis:
Oh, absolutely. This was a very well-known site. The very fact that the Civic Center was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright meant that it was a tourist attraction already. It was— it had been completed, I believe, in 1957. So this is 13 years later.

Tania Ketenjian:
Now, the circumstances that occurred here led to the Free Angela Davis movement, which later, when you got out of jail, shifted. You took on the momentum of that and transformed its name. Can you describe the feeling of having a whole nation behind you like that? Mm-hmm.

Angela Davis:
Well, okay, first I suppose I should say that my involvement in this case that led to my incarceration came as a result of my activism within campaigns to free political prisoners. So I was already involved in bringing people together to support the Soledad Brothers, to free Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. So I was a part of that effort that tried to bring communities of resistance together. One of the things I used to say, traveling up and down the coast of California. I was teaching at UCLA. I was involved in the campaign to free the Soledad Brothers. And I used to say to people, you will never know who the next person might be who will be the target of the state's repression.

And so therefore, we all have to participate in this campaign so that we create as vast a movement as possible that can protect us all, not only those of us who are in prison now, but those who might be targeted in the future, never knowing that I would be one of the next ones. And so my sense is that the rapidity with which that movement developed and grew had something to do with the fact that I was already involved in campaigns to free political prisoners. Of course, it also had to do with the fact that I was a Black woman, and so you had all kinds of people attracted— church women, sorority women, fraternity men, people who were involved in the trade union movement.

This aside from the activists. And then, of course, I was a member of the Communist Party. And the Communist Party had connections with other parties all over the world. And so I'm very thankful for the fact that so many of those people in so many different parts of the world, in Europe, of course, in Asia, in South America, in Africa, in Australia, got involved in the campaign. As well. So it was— that to me is actually the most important aspect of what happened during my case. It's not so much the fact that I triumphed as an individual, but the fact that so many people came together and were able to thwart the plans of the state.

This was the time when Ronald Reagan was the governor of this state. Richard Nixon Jackson was the president, and both of them had made it clear that I was going to be executed. I was charged with 3 capital crimes. What was so exciting then— of course, I benefited from that, but the excitement that I experienced went beyond my own individual benefits. What was so exciting was the fact that people joined hands. All over the world. And if they could do it then, they should be able to do it now again. So I think that's the lesson. That's what I try to point out. It's not so much that, look at me, here I am.

You know, there was this big movement behind me. But it's that that movement needs to be used to accomplish some of the many goals that progressive and, you know, radical movements have established.

Tania Ketenjian:
Being here right now, what feelings come up for you? Feelings and thoughts being right here, right now?

Angela Davis:
Well, I remember the long hours I spent in the jail. I remember the conflicts I had with many of the guards there. I remember some of the guards who were a little bit more who were friendlier and who would pass notes from the women who were on the other side. I was actually around the— let's see, the place where the majority of the women were kept is on this side, I think, and I was in a single cell, in a solitary cell on the other side. But also, I remember the fact that I saw many photographs of rallies that took place around here in the parking lot somewhere, and I'm not sure where they took place, but I do know that my mother spoke there, and I do know that my sister spoke, and many of my friends and comrades, and I can remember that that Nina Simone visited me.

She was performing in the— there's a performance center over there. And I had actually been— we had gotten a change of venue to Santa Clara County. So I had actually been moved to a small jail in Palo Alto when she came to visit me. Me. You know, Jesse Jackson. I can give you the names of many well-known people who came to visit me when I was in this place. Yeah, it does hold a lot of memories. And of course, at that time, I did not know what the outcome of the trial might be. I knew that I was not guilty, but I did not know, given the fact that the state had already spent enormous amounts of money to develop this case against me, and given the fact that it seemed like they were determined to see me at first executed, and then during the time I was in jail, California abolished the death penalty.

It abolished capital punishment for a short period of time. This is how I actually got out of jail on bail, and I think that had a great deal to do with the positive outcome of my trial. Because while I was here, I was initially brought in in handcuffs. My co-defendant Ruchell Magee, who is still behind bars, I was brought in in shackles. I was accompanied by guards. And so visually, the image was of a person who was already— had already been found guilty. And getting out on bail meant that there was an enormous difference. And maybe I should tell that story because that's actually a very fascinating story.

Fascinating story about how I got out on bail. And it's a story about the power of mass movements and how people can be reached beyond your sense of who is actively involved in the movement. I was charged with 3 capital crimes. Murder, kidnapping, conspiracy. All 3 of them by themselves could have earned me the death penalty. And the Attorney General who tried the case, the Assistant Attorney General who tried the case, indicated that he wanted the death penalty on all 3 counts. So it was, it was a very scary time. Scary situation, I should say. Now, a number of people who were involved in the Committee, the National United Committee to Free Angela Davis, which became the National United Committee to Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners, wanted to organize a bail campaign.

And so my sense— of course, I'm in jail here in Marin County Jail. Marin County, where we're now standing. And my perspective was very narrow, I suppose. But my sense was, why devote all of this energy to organize a bail campaign when I'm charged with 3 non-bailable offenses? But of course, I was outvoted, and they decided to organize a bail campaign. Campaign, despite the fact that I was ineligible for bail. And it was a good strategy. It was a good strategy because there were people who were afraid to support me because I was a communist, who didn't want to be associated with communists. So they, they might have been reluctant to come out in favor of freedom, but they could at least support bail.

And so they got petitions signed all over the country, all over the world, people who said they were in favor of my receiving bail. And Aretha Franklin signed the petition, and she also said that she would put up the money if I ever got released on bail. In February of 1972, the Supreme Court of California abolished the death penalty. And so what that meant was that I was, at least for that period, I was no longer charged with capital offenses. And because this huge bail campaign had already been organized, people began to contact the judge from all over the world. And so the very next day, he called us into chambers and he said, I've been receiving these calls, these telephone calls and these telegrams from, you know, many people who feel that you should be released on bail since the California Supreme Court has abolished capital punishment.

And he said, and I've decided that I am going to release you, which was like a huge shock. But the problem was that we didn't have the money, and Aretha Franklin was out of the country. She was in Jamaica or someplace like that, and this was before the period when it was possible to transfer funds in the way that, you know, it happens instantaneously now. So we— We knew that if we didn't get the money together within a very short period of time, that there might be the— we might lose that chance. And so this man, white man, farmer from Fresno, California, showed up at my lawyer's office and said that he wanted to put up his farm to get me out on bail.

And within a couple of hours, the paperwork had been processed, and that's how I got out. I should say parenthetically that the Ku Klux Klan damaged his property, killed some of his animals. And so people who were involved in the campaign actually had to go to Fresno to provide security for his farm. But the point that I'm making is that this was, this was the reach of the movement. Without that mass movement, we never would have known that a white farmer in Fresno, California would be willing to put up, you know, his And that was all that he owned, his entire farm, to guarantee my freedom. And so again, that's not a story about me. It's a story about the power of organized mass movements.

Tania Ketenjian:
And the power of the notion, like, the notion of freedom, the sense that this man must have had that in freeing someone else, part of him becomes free.

Angela Davis:
Oh, absolutely. The connectedness of us all and the kind of community we create with each other when we experience each other as politically but also emotionally close. And yeah, and I think this is the sense of community is something that we really need today. It's one of the things we're lacking. And of course, I'm not the kind of person who has nostalgia, you know, for the old days, but what I'm saying is that this is a lesson that might help us with all of the tools that we have now, because we have communication tools that we could have never dreamed dreamed about in those days.

I mentioned that the judge received telegrams and telephone calls and letters, but now of course we have instantaneous communication. So what ought we be able to do with that technology to create, you know, not transient sense of community, because it's very easy to contact a million people, you know, by texting or email or whatever, but an ongoing kind of permanent sense of togetherness.

Tania Ketenjian:
The other thing that I— that the story brings up, I think, is just serendipity. I mean, had the death penalty not been eradicated for that period of time, I mean, it's just sort of like a minor miracle.

Angela Davis:
Yeah, it is, it is. And it's also a miracle that those who were organizing the campaign for my freedom were totally prepared for that serendipity, because if they had followed my advice, they wouldn't have been. So yeah, yeah. And this is, you know, I think this is a lesson in what one does. As an organizer. There are never really any guarantees, but on the other hand, if you don't do the work, if you're not prepared and an opportunity arises, you'll never be able to take advantage of it.

Tania Ketenjian:
So to what extent does an organizer have to be a dreamer, have to sort of step outside of the realities of what can happen and sort of push beyond, beyond even hope? It's like actually truly believing in something that may not exist, you know, to really be able to visualize that?

Angela Davis:
Well, you know, one of the things I say very frequently when people ask me how I became an activist or the connection between my studies of philosophy and critical theory and my activism, you know, I point out the fact that when I was very young, very young, I don't know, 2 or 3 or My mother helped to create in me a habit of imagining what might be possible beyond the given. And this is how she explained to us children what racism was all about, because we couldn't understand why we didn't have access to, you know, all of the resources and facilities, why we couldn't go to the amusement park, why we couldn't, you know, go to the museum, and why we had to drink out of this fountain, and so forth and so on.

And my mother always used to say that this is not the way things are supposed to be. So she encouraged us to imagine a different world. She— and she also always said this is not only not the way things are supposed to be, but they will not be this way forever. And so she instilled in us the habit of imagination and to not be so constrained by this world of racial segregation that we couldn't free ourselves to imagine, you know, what it might be like not to have these restraints. Imposed upon us. And I think I've carried that with me, and I think it is a trait that organizers need, that anyone who calls herself or himself a progressive thinker or activist needs to be able to move beyond what is given, move beyond the present, move beyond the status quo quo and to imagine how things might be different and to use that as a goal for struggle.

You know, even though there are no guarantees and you never know that you're actually going to be able to achieve that, but if you don't try, then you certainly won't. And I like to always point out that Even though we never, we rarely actually achieve what it is we imagine we're going to achieve. Rarely do the new realities correspond totally to the dreams. But at the same time, we often accomplish things that we never could have imagined. So the point is things do change as a result of that activism. They may not change in the same way we want them to change, but they do change.

And oftentimes they change in ways that we could never have imagined. I think that the work we did transformed the world in some major ways. Maybe not in the way we thought it would, But in ways that, that many of us could not predict. So I think that is a part of the excitement of doing this work, being prepared for the unimaginable and being able to move forward from there.

Tania Ketenjian:
Those were the words of Professor, philosopher, author, activist, communist, speaker, and thinker Angela Davis. This is part 1 of a 3-part interview with Professor Davis as we explore the Bay Area through her eyes. Next week, we visit San Quentin. To learn more about Angela Davis, look her up online. My name is Tania Ketenjian. This is Sight Unseen, a half-hour weekly program featuring candid conversations with the artists and thinkers of our time. You're listening to Resonance 104.4 FM, the UK's first radio art station.