Student Groups Praised Former Communist Activist's Life of 'Social Justice'

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Angela Davis, a former Communist Party member, is no fan of free markets, capitalism and Israel, yet she was an honored speaker at George Washington University. A recent event held at the Washington, D.C.-based George Washington University was sponsored by the campus’s Feminist Student Union and Black Student Union.

This is how they described Angela Davis’s accomplishments in their description of the event:

Join Students for Justice in Palestine at George Washington for our Palestine Awareness Week. This year we are kicking off our extended week of events with a speech from Angela Davis discussing the importance of Black-Palestinian solidarity in the fight for liberation. Her most recent book, Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement, was published in October in 2015. Dr. Davis reveals the deep connections between the incarceration of Black Americans and the continued occupation of Palestine by the state of Israel. Most recently, Angela Davis brought Palestine front and center at the Women’s March on Washington saying “Women’s rights are human rights all over the planet and that is why we say freedom and justice for Palestine”.

Through her activism and scholarship over many decades, Angela Davis has been deeply involved in movements for social justice around the world. Her work as an educator – both at the university level and in the larger public sphere – has always emphasized the importance of building communities of struggle for economic, racial, and gender justice. Professor Davis’ teaching career has taken her to San Francisco State University, Mills College, and UC Berkeley. Mostly recently she spent fifteen years at the University of California Santa Cruz where she is now Distinguished Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness – an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program – and of Feminist Studies.

Angela Davis is the author of nine books and has lectured throughout the United States as well as in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America. Her recent books include Abolition Democracy and Are Prisons Obsolete? about the abolition of the prison industrial complex, a new edition of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and a collection of essays entitled The Meaning of Freedom.