Angela Y. Davis

Featuring a new introduction by the author, Angela Davis: An Autobiography is a classic account of a life in struggle.

An Autobiography

Angela Davis

James Baldwin’s letter to Angela Davis while she was imprisoned in Marin County Jail, California, 1971.

karla

Some of us, white and black, know how great a price has already been paid to bring into existence a new consciousness, […] If we know and do nothing, we are worse than the murderers hired in our name. If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own. […] For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.

Angela Y. Davis on her white classmates’ reaction to the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham September 16, 1963.

No matter how much I talked, the people around me were simply incapable of grasping it. They could not understand why the whole society was guilty of this murder why their beloved Kennedy was also to blame, why the whole ruling stratum in their country, by being guilty of racism, was also guilty of this murder. 

It hurt to see us folding in on ourselves, using ourselves as whipping posts because we did not yet know how to struggle against the real cause of our misery.

a perfect reading experience: the chronological order is mismatched in favor of the reader’s deeper understanding of context. while long periods of time in the plot can be tiring to read they underline the exhausting experience of the author. this book is a political awakening for those who need it. a terrifying yet powerful account of the not so distant past. no prior knowledge is needed. if you need frequent chapter stepping stones this can be overwhelming but nevertheless worth every page. 

Angela Davis An Autobiography

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