Re: Angela Davis

[Elaine Jude Leyda <ejl1386@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

        Sean:
        Send your email address and I'll be more than happy to ramble on
about Angela Davis, who is the "subject" of a chapter of my diss. More to
the immediate point:
        Angela Davis is presently at UC Santa Cruz, and this past spring
received an endowed professorship from the Calif State Senate--the
position of Presidential chair on campus--which comes with extra funds
that Davis plans to use to develop ethnic studies courses.
        Bibliography info: I have a pretty thorough one that I could send
sometime, but here are the more recent things:
1. an article on the use of images from the 60s (namely hers and Black
Panther images) in current media (rap videos, fashion, etc.) is in one of
the summer's Critical Inquiry; she discusses the repurcussions of herself
& her trial in the context of recent 60s chic. (Sorry I lent out the
article...)
        2. A short piece in _Black Popular Culture_ (edited by Michelle
Cliff, I think)
        3. "Outcast Mothers and Surrogates: Racism and Reproductive
Politics in the Nineties." In Kaufmann, Linda, ed. _American Feminist
Thought at Century's End" Blackwell, 1993.
        4. "Meditations on the Legacy of Malcolm X." In _Malcolm X: In
Our Own Image_, ed. Joe Wood. St. Martin's, 1992.
        5. "Complexity, Activism, Optimism: An Interview with Angela
Davis." In _Feminist Review_ 31 (Spring 1989): 66-81. [This is the most
recent interview I know of.]
        The most important, and the most cited, is her first collection
of essays/speeches: _Women, Race, Class_, which holds the terribly
important essay on the Myth of the Black Rapist [I forget the full
title]. Her second collection, _Women, culture, Politics_ also has some
fine pieces, but not the earth-breaking stuff of the earlier one. Above
all, though, her Autobiography, done shortly after her aquittal in 1972,
is the place to begin, not only to find out about Davis, but for a view
of the late 60s and early 70s.
        As far as biography goes, she was born in Birmingham, Alabama,
attended high school in New York, went to Brandeis (where she met Herbert
Marcuse, who later became her PhD director when she left Adorno behind in
Germany to return to contribute to the black strugle in the US), then to
the U of Frankfurt; a philosophy and french major, she did her honors
thesis on The Phenomenological Attitude in Robbe-Grillet. Felt the need
to return to US to help her people, went to UC San Diego, where Marcuse
had just gone (this is 1967, by the way). Begins organizing, works with
SNCC, Black Panther Party, & CPUSA. SHe joined CPUSA and remained a
member until recently (I'venot yet been able to get accurate info on this).
        The more 'famous' details, though, include her being fired by the
University Senate (while a phil instructor at UCLA) for being a member of
the Communist Party; she went to court, and won the right to teach. then
Reagan and the Senate fired her for her political activities (organizing,
public rallies, etc.) on behalf of black prisoners (The Soledad
Brothers), etc. One of the prisoners' brothers made an attempt to rescue
3 of the Soledad bros. by entering a coutroom where they wre, and
kidnapping the judge and two others. The judge's head was blown off, and
the whole thing was a sad mess. Davis was almost immediately put on the
Wanted list for this, on the grounds that the guns the yong man used were
registered in her name. She fled, was captured a few months later, and
thus began the trial for murder, conspiracy and treason (at that time the
penalty, if she had been found guilty, was death). Davis repreented
herself, along with two attorneys. For a fine account of the trial, see
Bettina Aptheker's _If They Come in the Morning_ (she's the daughter of
the CPUSA historian Herbert Aptheker).
        I could go on. But for the finer points, and for some of her
"main theses" and etc, do send to me privately (unless the whoile list
wants to know).
        Davis, by the way, was on NBC or ABC news Monday night as one of
a panel of blacks speaking against the Million man March. She identifies
herself, still, as a black feminist, and on this ocasion, said plainly
that 'we' cannot support a march that refuses the particpation of women.
Shortly after the LA riots, someone asked her what she thought the riots
would do to the 'black community'; with a wry smile, Davis replied: well,
actually, I have never understood 'community' in terms of race.
        Davis is one of the few who can be called a true dialectician.
She teaches several courses, but includes hegel and Marx and kant in most
of them (so I am told). Her works are taught in political science courses,
women's studies, sociology, and philosophy (from what I know, of course)
courses.
        Do feel free to ask any questions you have; I'll try to answer.

Elaine Leyda
EJL1386@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



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