If They Come in the Morning Voices of Resistance

My life is at stake in this case-not simply the life of a lone individual, but a life which has been given over to the struggles of my people, a life which belongs to Black people who are tired of poverty, and racism, of the unjust imprisonment of tens of thousands of our brothers and sisters." "I stand before this court", she declares, "as a target of a political frame up which, far from pointing to my culpability, implicates the State of California as an agent of political repression. I declare publicly before the court, before the people of this country, that I am innocent of all charges which have been leveled against me by the State of California." On the central theme of this book Miss Davis contends that "the offense of the political prisoner in his political boldness, his consistent challenges-legally or extra-legally-of fundamental social wrongs fostered and reinforced by the state.