On April 18, UCCS held its annual Significant Speaker Event, the first since 2019. The sold-out event featured Angela Davis as the speaker. Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Rame Hanna helped moderate the event.
Angela Davis has made it her mission to share her life story and challenge her audiences to join the struggle for racial, economic and gender justice.
Angela has been deeply involved in some of the major social movements over the last 50 years. As a teenager, she marched and picketed against racial segregation. She became known as a radical feminist and activist, a member of the Communist Party USA, and an associate of the Black Panther Party. Angela went on earn a doctorate in philosophy.
Her outspoken ways made her a focal point of criticism. Her Communist ties led then-California Governor Ronald Reagan in 1969 to try to bar her from teaching at any California university. The attempt failed; she is now professor emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in its History of Consciousness Department.
Angela has campaigned for social justice – particularly with what she calls the “prison industrial complex” that has grown since the 80s with the emergence of the private-prison industry. She is one of the founders of Critical Resistance, a national grassroots organization fighting for changes in the prison system. Her books include “Are Prisons Obsolete,” “Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prison, Torture, Empire, Abolition. Feminism. Now.” (2022) and “Angela Davis: An Autobiography” (2022).
Angela writes and frequently speaks as part of her mission to build engaged communities. She urges her audience to “hone their critical skills, develop them and implement them” while fighting for racial, economic and gender justice.