Angela Davis calls on social activists to broaden their imaginations
The power of art and imagination can drive social movements like Black Lives Matter, the activist said.
by NOELLE ROYER on SEPT. 26, 2015
Legendary political activist and scholar Angela Davis praised the role of art in social activism to about 1,000 University of Maryland students gathered in Stamp Student Union Thursday.
“Artists, whether they be musicians or visual artists or literary artists, are often our beacon in times of struggle,” she said. “Art can educate the imagination.”
Davis commended the musical creations of several black artists, including Janelle Monae’s “Hell You Talmbout,” Common and John Legend’s “Glory” in connection with the film “Selma,” Ambrose Akinmusire’s “Rollcall for Those Absent” and Terence Blanchard’s jazz album called “Breathless,” which is a recapitulation of the Eric Garner story.
Davis explained that art — from music and photography to literature and poetry — has a rich history in black social movements. In fact, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, Patrisse Cullors, is a performance artist. The power of art and imagination, Davis said, can drive social movements like Black Lives Matter.
Davis continued to speak about the importance of the movement against racist violence. “If indeed all lives matter, we would not have to emphatically proclaim that black lives matter,” she said.
“More often than not, universal categories have been clandestinely racialized … For most of our history, the very category ‘human’ has not embraced black people and people of color. Its abstractness has been colored white and gendered male.”
Professor Robyn Muncy, who studies women and reform movements in the U.S., said a huge amount of research stands behind Davis’ claim. Agreeing with Davis, she said, “Those universal terms have generally obscured the fact that they’re used to refer only to specific groups of people, not to everybody.”
Lezah Calvin, a junior government and politics and criminology dual major, said she is taking a class about black and Latino relations. Her class looked at a study in which college-aged Latinos in Houston said they think black women are “unambitious.”
“People don’t see black and think success,” Calvin said.
“I think being an African-American woman is one of the hardest demographics to ever be in,” said Alexa Holliday, a junior elementary education major.
Davis presented a radical solution to social injustice. “When we are told that we simply need better police and better prisons, we counter with what we really need,” she said. “We need to be able to reimagine security, which will involve the abolition of policing and imprisonment as we know them. We will say, ‘Demilitarize the police. Disarm the police. Abolish the institution of the police as we know it and abolish imprisonment as the dominant mode of punishment.”
She continued over the applause: “But then, that will be the beginning. We will have to figure out how to reinvent entire worlds.”
In response to Davis’ call to action, Muncy said, “We need some brilliant and inspiring art to get our imaginations cracked open wide enough to imagine that.”
Noelle Royer is a staff reporter at Plex. She studies journalism at the University of Maryland.
