It often struck me they were speaking of these obstacles as if they would always be there, part of the natural order of things, rather than the product of a system of racism, which we could eventually overturn.

Only this would prove that we were serious about overcoming all the obstacles before us. Our teachers warned us that we would have to steel ourselves for hard labor and more hard labor, sacrifices and more sacrifices. A corollary of this principle was that the road would be harder and rockier for Black people than their white counterparts. “We should seek out all the doors which still remain ajar, however slight the opening might be.” Captured, he or she is a political prisoner.” The former might be called a criminal (though in many instances he is a victim), but the latter, as a reformist or revolutionary, is interested in universal social change. “There is a distinct and qualitative difference between one breaking a law for one’s own individual self-interest and violating it in the interests of a class or a people whose oppression is expressed either directly or indirectly through that particular law. And I will not take the fifth amendment against self-incrimination, because my political beliefs do not incriminate me, they incriminate the Nixons, Agnews, and Reagans.” “The very institutions which condemned Nat Turner and reduced his struggle for freedom to a simple criminal case of murder, owed their existence to the decision, made a half century earlier, to take up arms against the British oppressor.” If They Come in the Morning: Voices Of Resistance (1971)

Not familiar with Davis’ books? Keep reading to find a sampling of quoted excerpts from a selection of Angela Davis’ books that address women, race and class in the context of Black feminism and prison abolitionism.

Race women class angela davis