Angela Davis is more than an afro and if you think wearing an afro is radical and revolutionary enough, then you do not know much about Angela Davis’ life. Having grown up in Birmingham and knowing the girls who were murdered in the Birmingham church bombing, Davis seemed destined to want to make a change in the world and she did. Here was a black women who received a Ph.D. in philosophy, spoke out against the Prison Industrial Complex long before it was a popular phrase and in the mainstream, was tracked by the FBI for her outspokenness and links to communism and the Black Panthers, and later came out as a lesbian. And she did this all as a black woman!

Living in a world where power and knowledge is equaled to mainly male, white and heterosexual, all of that was quite a feat. We need to know about her and others like her as a part of our history, and the many aspects of them that connect to us. As Erykah Badu said in The Black Power Mixtape, what we need to do is read, write and document our stories because if we do not, we allow people to twist those stories in their favor. Shola Lynch’s film Free Angela and All Political Prisoners is another chance for the hunted to take back their story from the hunter. Happy Women’s History Month to Angela Davis and the film will be in theaters April 5th.

Here is a poem that exemplifies Davis’ influence:

A Shout-Out on Liberation [Sheroe Sci-Fi]

I fell in love with Angela Davis

In one fell swoop

I was 8 and bored that summer

My daily feen was a focused search through my parents’ awesomely Black book collection

If They Come in the Morning was a treasured favorite

That fro did me in

Her quiet fire spoke it all

Eyes steady, gait straight

Her radical be fly

Fly high, soul hi

Up up to the sky sky

That’s when the whole affair began

It endures for eva eva

Let it rip

Hands up for Prof. Davis

And a Black girl’s fantasia of possibility

SRN  |  03.13.13

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As part of the Black Bloggers Connect contest.