“A journey is called such, because you do not know what you will find on the journey, or what you will do with what you find, or what you find will do to you.”
This is not a direct quote, but rather a paraphrase of comments made by James Baldwin, renowned African American author, activist and social critic in the recent documentary film, I Am Not Your Negro. The struggle for equality, justice and freedom has been the struggle of African people from the beginning of our encounter with this “American” soil. It has been a struggle for our very humanity at its inception, in the face of one of the most inculcated demonstrations of barbarity and evil that has systemically and institutionally been perpetuated on other human beings in our history. European countries participated in chattel slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade for well over 300 years. They forced Africans onto slave ships and transported them across the Atlantic Ocean.
The first European nation to engage in the Transatlantic Slave Trade was Portugal in the mid-to-late 1400s. Portugal continued in the “business” of trading in human flesh for nearly fifty years after the Transatlantic Slave Trade was “officially” ended in the United States of America in 1808. It should be noted, however, that the institution of slavery itself, was not abolished in the U.S. until after the Civil War in 1863. So then, the struggle for freedom for African peoples in America has been a long struggle that continues to this day. Our struggle has grown to include the struggles of Indigenous Peoples, immigrant populations, the struggle for gender equality and against gender violence, LGBTQI rights, religious freedom and the struggle of all oppressed people. It has indeed been a journey.
RVA had the opportunity to have an audience with one of our iconic She-roes of the struggle for justice, freedom and equality, last week. Dr. Angela Y. Davis was in town at the invitation of the 2nd Annual Afrikana Independent Film Festival. Ms. Davis spoke to a capacity crowd gathered at the VMFA on Friday evening, after the screening of “FREE ANGELA DAVIS AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS”, an award winning documentary film by Shola Lynch. The documentary chronicles the life of the young college professor Angela Davis, and how her social activism implicated her in a botched kidnapping attempt that ended with an infamous shootout at the Marin County Courthouse, four people dead (including the Judge), and turned her into a notorious fugitive with her name on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list. The evening was billed as an “Evening With An Icon: ANGELA DAVIS”. The evening was electric. It was a gathering of the community and it was a call to activism. Through the moderator, Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom, a sociology professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, we had the opportunity to talk about the social justice movement, Black Lives Matter and the Critical Resistance, a national organization dedicated to dismantling of the prison industrial complex. Dr. Davis spoke to her concerns that more resources and attention have been devoted to the prison system than to educational institutions.
Speaking to the disillusionment and the overwhelming sense of loss felt by many, given the current political climate and outcome of our most recent presidential election, Angela Davis reminded us of the “journey” we MUST agree to engage in, and The Struggle as a way of life. “We MUST see ourselves in the future,” she admonished us. Just as we call upon the icons of the past, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer, Nat Turner… we must ALSO endeavor to engage in the #Resistance, as we too, will be called upon for the inspiration of the future.