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There is an unbroken line of police violence in the United States that takes us all the way back to the days of slavery, the aftermath of slavery, the development of the Ku Klux Klan. There is so much history of this racist violence that simply to bring one person to justice is not going to disturb the whole racist edifice.

Angela Davis

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Angela Davis
Age: 80
Born: 1944
Born: January 29
Autobiographer
Feminist
Human Rights Activist
Philosopher
Political Activist
Politician
Teacher
University Teacher
Writer
Birmingham
Alabama
Angela Yvonne Davis
Angela Y. Davis
Much
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Development
Edifice
Way
History
Violence
Aftermath
States
Simply
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Unbroken
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Days
Slavery
Whole
Lines
Police
Klux
Going
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Klan

More quotes by Angela Davis

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We still have to struggle against the impact of racism, but it doesn't happen in the same way. I think it is much more complicated today than it ever was.
Angela Davis
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Radical simply means 'grasping things at the root.'
Angela Davis
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The idea of freedom is inspiring. But what does it mean? If you are free in a political sense but have no food, what's that? The freedom to starve?
Angela Davis
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You can never stop and as older people, we have to learn how to take leadership from the youth and I guess I would say that this is what I'm attempting to do right now.
Angela Davis
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There is so much history of this racist violence that simply to bring one person to justice is not going to disturb the whole racist edifice.
Angela Davis
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The work of the political activist inevitably involves a certain tension between the requirement that position be taken on current issues as they arise and the desire that one's contributions will somehow survive the ravages of time.
Angela Davis
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I think that the response to the OJ Simpson trial was based on a kind of sensibility that emerged out of the many campaigns to defend black communities against police violence.
Angela Davis
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In a sense the quest for the emancipation of black people in the U.S. has always been a quest for economic liberation which means to a certain extent that the rise of black middle class would be inevitable.
Angela Davis
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Racism is a much more clandestine, much more hidden kind of phenomenon, but at the same time it's perhaps far more terrible than it's ever been.
Angela Davis
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The campaign against the death penalty has been - while a powerful campaign, its participants have been those who attend all of the vigils, a relatively small number of people.
Angela Davis
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As soon as my trial was over, we tried to use the energy that had developed around my case to create another organization, which we called the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression.
Angela Davis
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That's true but I think the contemporary problem that we are facing increasing numbers of black people and other people of color being thrown into a status that involves work in alternative economies and increasing numbers of people who are incarcerated.
Angela Davis
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To understand how any society functions you must understand the relationship between the men and the women.
Angela Davis
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I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement.
Angela Davis
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we have accumulated a wealth of historical experience which confirms our belief that the scales of American justice are out of balance.
Angela Davis
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Human beings cannot be willed and molded into non-existence.
Angela Davis
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It is essential to resist the depiction of history as the work of heroic individuals
Angela Davis
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We have been basically persuaded that we should not talk about racism.
Angela Davis
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The prison is not the only institution that has posed complex challenges to the people who have lived with it and have become so inured to its presence that they could not con­ceive of society without it. Within the history of the United States the system of slavery immediately comes to mind.
Angela Davis
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When children attend schools that place a greater value on discipline and security than on knowledge and intellectual development, they are attending prep schools for prison.
Angela Davis