Civil rights activist Angela Davis: Movements matter

Movements make a difference, civil rights activist Angela Davis told a capacity crowd Wednesday evening at Marquette University’s Al McGuire Center.

“Even if they do not necessarily achieve the goals that they posit, they make a positive difference in the world,” she said.

Davis, a nationally known civil rights activist and scholar, spoke as part of the Marquette Forum, a yearlong series of discussions examining racism and inequality.

Marquette's invitation to speak drew criticism from the right on Twitter.

And the irony of being asked to speak at Marquette, which removed a mural of another black activist, Assata Shakur, in 2015, was not lost on Davis. Davis was once labeled a terrorist by President Richard Nixon. After massive demonstrations, she was acquitted of criminal charges related to a prison break in 1972.

Shakur, meanwhile, was convicted of several felonies in 1977 after a police officer was fatally shot in New Jersey. She escaped from prison and gained political asylum in Cuba. Davis, who called Shakur a "friend and comrade," asserted that the evidence against Shakur, like the evidence in her own case, lacked credibility.

"When I first heard about the erasure of the mural, it occurred to me that it could’ve been a reaction to a mural depicting me," Davis said.

Davis' speech came against a backdrop of both the Black Lives Matter movement and an increasing apprehension among human rights advocates about what Donald Trump's presidency will mean for prisoners, women and members of minority groups.

Trump’s election, she said, was “in part a reaction to the achievements of radical activism” against police violence, mass incarceration, homophobia and misogyny, among other things.

Those who value freedom must resist efforts to roll back reforms, but they also must continue moving forward “despite the intransigence of the present administration,” she said.

Davis praised black female leaders, without whom there would be no black liberation movement, she said. She specifically commended Maria Hamilton, whose son, Dontre, was fatally shot by a Milwaukee police officer.

“Some people say this is Sheriff David Clarke’s city,” she said to boos from the crowd.  “But I say this is Dontre Hamilton’s city, and I thank his family for giving leadership to the movement for black lives and for refusing to allow his life and his death to be forgotten.”

In addition to calling out Clarke, Davis criticized the city itself for both its high black male incarceration rate and for its high rate of eviction, particularly of black women.

“It’s been said,” she noted, “that black men are locked up and black women are locked out.”

Milwaukee, she said, is a place where “racism's inequalities and injustices loom large, but it is also a city where people refuse to believe that the struggle for freedom will suffer defeat.”