Summary of Angela Y. Davis's Angela Davis

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 I was alone with Helen hiding from the police, and I was grieving over the death of someone I loved. Two days earlier, in her house in Los Angeles' Echo Park, I learned about the Marin County Courthouse revolt and the death of my friend Jonathan Jackson.
#2 My life was now that of a fugitive, and fugitives are constantly paranoid. I had to learn how to elude him, outsmart him, and be worthy of my ancestors who had waited for nightfall to cover their steps.
#3 I had to move quickly. The police were swarming around me and my friends. I knew that if a full-fledged search were conducted, Helen and Tim’s place would not be safe. I had known them for a number of years, and although they were not members of any movement organization, they had a history of radical political activity.
#4 I was finally ready to hole up in Las Vegas, until the search for me intensified. I had to leave and meet with my friend David Poindexter in Chicago.

Sujets

• Love
• Love (disambiguation)
• Politique
• Black
• Autobiography
• Regional
• African American
• Biography
• Cultural
• Ethnic
• Sexualité
• sexualité
• Sexualité

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 10 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822503328
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Angela Y. Davis's Angela Davis
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I was alone with Helen hiding from the police, and I was grieving over the death of someone I loved. Two days earlier, in her house in Los Angeles' Echo Park, I learned about the Marin County Courthouse revolt and the death of my friend Jonathan Jackson.

#2

My life was now that of a fugitive, and fugitives are constantly paranoid. I had to learn how to elude him, outsmart him, and be worthy of my ancestors who had waited for nightfall to cover their steps.

#3

I had to move quickly. The police were swarming around me and my friends. I knew that if a full-fledged search were conducted, Helen and Tim’s place would not be safe. I had known them for a number of years, and although they were not members of any movement organization, they had a history of radical political activity.

#4

I was finally ready to hole up in Las Vegas, until the search for me intensified. I had to leave and meet with my friend David Poindexter in Chicago.

#5

I had to disguise myself as David to meet with his political opponents, but the curly wig I wore was not good enough for a situation that would become more dangerous. I had to improvise the details of my journey as we went along.

#6

I was afraid for my parents, who were still in Detroit. I had to buy some clothes so I could get out of the things I had been wearing for the last few days. I was also jealous because David could go out when he wished.

#7

I decided I would not leave the country, but I thought I could lead the FBI to believe that I had. I wrote a statement that I would deliver to someone who could release it to the press. I wrote about Jonathan's youthful, even romantic, determination to challenge the injustices of the prison system.

#8

I had been underground about two months when I woke up and got dressed. I was nervous about how much longer I could endure isolation. I was sure that all these white men around me were police agents waiting to capture me. But nothing happened.

#9

I was completely calm as I walked towards my room. I was aware of the guns being pointed at me, but I didn’t feel afraid. I was completely calm, even when the agents pulled me out of the elevator and into the motel corridor.

#10

I was arrested in 1970 and brought to the FBI headquarters, where I was met by a woman with bleached-out hair who searched me. I told them I had nothing to say to the FBI, and demanded access to a telephone. They ignored me. Finally, they said that an attorney, Gerald Lefcourt, was on the telephone.

#11

I was brought to the New York Women’s House of Detention, which was located in the Village. It was the same building where I had seen the faceless women I would never be able to answer scream at me from behind the bars.

#12

I was eventually led to a large windowless room, where I was left alone to wait. A new guard was sent to guard me, and she was black. She was young, and her demeanor was unaggressive and seemingly sympathetic.

#13

I was eventually transferred to the women’s prison, and when I tried to make a phone call, the officers gave me the runaround. I was furious, but helpless. I watched as a sister went into labor and was taken away in an ambulance.

#14

I was finally booked into the jail, and after three women were left to wait with me, we were searched internally. I was excited to hear people outside chanting my name, but I was also terrified. I didn’t want to be paranoid, but it was better to be too distrustful than not cautious enough.

#15

I was eventually brought to court, where a conviction on any one of the charges against me could mean death in the gas chamber. Yet, I felt better than I had in a long time. I heard echoes of slogans being chanted on the other side of the walls, and I felt like I was among human beings again.

#16

I was eventually arraigned on the federal charges - interstate flight to avoid prosecution. The judge had issued a warrant based on an FBI agent's affidavit declaring that I had been seen in Birmingham by reliable sources.

#17

I was transferred to the California Federal District Court, and the trial was short and to the point. I was the Angela Davis named in the warrant, and the bail figure was a farce. Who would ever consider raising $250,000 to get me out of jail.

#18

I was released on my own recognizance, but I was booked as a prisoner of the State of New York. I was prepared to wait the whole night before my arraignment. When John finally arrived, he said that the police had directed him to the wrong courtroom.

#19

The prison was so unpalatable that I only wanted to sleep. When I closed my eyes, I was jolted out of my exhaustion by screams in a Slavic language. The same breakfast was placed on my cell floor every morning.

#20

I was thrown in jail after my arrest, and I was extremely upset about the conditions. I made as many requests as I could think of, but the officers only responded with silence. I realized that I had vastly overestimated both the library and the commissary in that jail.

#21

The prison authorities did not allow me to have contact with my attorneys, and when I went to meet them, I had to go down to the ground floor. The women in 4b were all being horribly damaged.

#22

In the cell next to mine lived a white woman between the ages of thirty and forty-five who had lost all contact with reality. She would scream at night and make racial slurs. I was convinced that she had been placed there intentionally as part of the jailers’ efforts to break me.

#23

The week I spent in 4b was far worse than my worst fantasies of solitary confinement. It was torture to be surrounded by these women who urgently needed professional help. I was unable to help them out of their misery, because a wall stood between us.

#24

I was transferred to the main population after a week in 4b. The officer who brought me my bed was Puerto Rican, and I began talking to other inmates. Some were recuperating women who had been in the jail because of their conditions, while others were elderly women who may not have survived the regular jail routine.

#25

I was transferred to another part of the jail, and was told that I was about to be transferred to another part of the jail. I protested being bounced back and forth like a Ping-Pong ball, but actually I didn’t mind the move. I hated the lack of privacy in the dormitory.

#26

I was isolated in a solitary cell, and it took hours to shower. I began to realize that they had assigned someone to watch me twenty-four hours a day. I was the victim of undue discrimination. The political campaign would have to reveal the precedent the jail administration and government were trying to set.

#27

I decided to dramatize the situation by declaring myself on a hunger strike for as long as I was kept in isolation. The food was not appetizing, but it was not difficult to go on a hunger strike.

#28

There were a few officers at the jail who were willing to risk their jobs to help the prisoners, and they would bring in contraband items and literature for the prisoners.

#29

I began to receive visits from friends, and the demonstrators would gather on the corner of Greenwich and West Tenth to protest my solitary confinement. I became engrossed in the speeches, and felt separated from my comrades.

#30

The court ruled that the jail administration could not hold me any longer in isolation and under maximum security conditions. I was ecstatic, but I didn’t put it past the jail administration to come up with another situation that would give me an equally bad time.

#31

The sisters helped me improvise a curtain in front of the toilet and sink so they could not be seen from the corridor. I would spend my lock-in time carefully folding newspapers and stuffing them between the gate and the floor, and halfway up the gate along the wall.

#32

In jail, you learn that nothing can be taken for granted. You cannot assume that your most basic needs will be satisfied. There are always strings attached. If you conduct yourself in such a way as to provoke an officer to place you in lockup, you lose your commissary privileges.

#33

Prisons and jails are designed to break people, but prisoners will invent and constantly invoke various defenses.