Fact: Whenever Angela Davis speaks, we listen. The icon was one of the many who lent her voice to the Women’s March on Washington yesterday, continuing the fight she’s been a leader of for almost five decades. Her speech was a call for resistance of Trump’s presidency and a more militant mindset as we start our next four years with this new administration:
“At a challenging moment in our history, let us remind ourselves that we the hundreds of thousands, the millions of women, trans-people, men and youth who are here at the Women’s March, we represent the powerful forces of change that are determined to prevent the dying cultures of racism, hetero-patriarchy from rising again,” powerfully started Davis. “We recognize that we are collective agents of history and that history cannot be deleted like web pages. We know that we gather this afternoon on indigenous land and we follow the lead of the first peoples who despite massive genocidal violence have never relinquished the struggle for land, water, culture, their people. We especially salute today the Standing Rock Sioux.”
She continued, “The freedom struggles of black people that have shaped the very nature of this country’s history cannot be deleted with the sweep of a hand. We cannot be made to forget that black lives do matter.” Davis reminded us that the United States has colonialism and slavery at its foundation, which means that enslavement and immigration are intrinsic to American history. “Spreading xenophobia, hurling accusations of murder and rape and building walls will not erase history,” emphasized the activist. “No human being is illegal. The struggle to save the planet, to stop climate change, to guarantee the accessibility of water from the lands of the Standing Rock Sioux, to Flint, Michigan, to the West Bank and Gaza. The struggle to save our flora and fauna, to save the air—this is ground zero of the struggle for social justice.”
The Women’s March on Washington and all of its sister marches around the world spoke to the hope and potential of feminism now and throughout our lifetime. Davis went on, “And inclusive and intersectional feminism that calls upon all of us to join the resistance to racism, to Islamophobia, to anti-Semitism, to misogyny, to capitalist exploitation. We dedicate ourselves to collective resistance.” She then got into specifics, calling out the housing market and gentrification first. “Resistance to the health care privateers. Resistance to the attacks on Muslims and on immigrants. Resistance to attacks on disabled people.” Essentially, Davis gave us a list of causes to get involved in. She wasn’t done either. “Resistance to state violence perpetrated by the police and through the prison industrial complex. Resistance to institutional and intimate gender violence, especially against trans women of color.”
“Women’s rights are human rights all over the planet and that is why we say freedom and justice for Palestine,” affirmed Davis. “We celebrate the impending release of Chelsea Manning. And Oscar López Rivera. But we also say free Leonard Peltier.” Mumia Abu-Jamal and Assata Shakur were also named by the legend. “Over the next months and years we will be called upon to intensify our demands for social justice to become more militant in our defense of vulnerable populations. Those who still defend the supremacy of white male hetero-patriarchy had better watch out.”
There will be almost 1,500 days in the Trump administration and Davis urged us all to resist his policies every single day. “Resistance on the ground, resistance in the classrooms, resistance on the job, resistance in our art and in our music. This is just the beginning.” And she ended with a quote from Ella Baker, “‘We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.'”
Did you have a favorite moment from yesterday’s protests?
Spied @ ELLE.com