Protesters called for her release. John Lennon and Yoko Ono wrote the song "Angela," and the Rolling Stones recorded "Sweet Black Angel." She was acquitted in 1972.
She has a doctorate in philosophy and has written several books. She has taught at many universities and is currently a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, despite former Gov. Ronald Reagan's vow that Davis, once fired from a UC school, would never again be allowed to teach in the UC system.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day may be an occasion to celebrate, but it's not a day of victory.
"We are not now living the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King," according to Angela Davis, a scholar, feminist and activist who gained fame in the 1970s when she was tried and acquitted on charges that she helped orchestrate an attempted prison break that left a California judge dead.
Davis gave the keynote address at the University of Utah's 23rd annual MLK celebration Wednesday, telling the audience that while slavery and segregation have ended, racial and social injustice remain.
"It's a kind of racism that does not call itself racism," she told the standing-room-only crowd of more than 1,000, including 140 young black women who were excused from their Salt Lake City schools to hear the speech.
Davis recalled growing up in Birmingham, Ala., on "Dynamite Hill," so named because "whenever a black family bought a home in that neighborhood, it got blown up."
When she returns there today, she sees new forms of racism. She points to deeper poverty, as industrial jobs go overseas; and the mirror-opposite relationship between colleges and prisons, with dismal numbers of blacks in one, and soaring populations in the other.
In fact, prison "abolition" has become a main focus for Davis in the three decades since she was jailed. Rather than filling cells, she advocates addressing the underlying issues of class, race and gender that have put disproportionate numbers of blacks and Latinos behind bars.
Davis was interrupted several times by applause from the audience, including a call from one person who yelled out, "Angela, run for president!" She declined with a laugh, saying she prefers the life of the gadfly. The biggest outburst may have come when she commented on the war in Iraq and the "spread of democracy."
"When some people say democracy, I hide," she said. "Exporting democracy to other parts of the world by the use of violence and war, that's not the kind of democracy I want to be associated with."
The audience also cheered when she discussed "undocumented people," calling their struggle the civil rights issue of our day.
Despite her dim view of social and racial progress in America, Davis said King's birthday is still reason to "celebrate the continued struggle," she said.
She admonished audience members not to wait for a heroic figure like King to lead the next fight. Instead, she said, become activists like the women who stayed up all night printing fliers that called for a bus strike, a simple act that preceded King's leadership and in fact eventually led to the civil rights movement.
Regina Resurreccion took her 4-year-old daughter, Amalia, to hear Davis speak.
"I just had to bring her," said the Clearfield mother after standing in line to get a picture with Davis. "I want my daughter to grow up with diversity in her life, and not to care about the color of someone's skin."
Frances Battle, the principal at Bryant Intermediate School in Salt Lake City, brought several students and hoped the message resonated with them - especially the part about becoming individual activists for change.
"All of this ties into what we can do as we go forward," she said.
jbarrett@sltrib.com
MLK Day events
* More events are scheduled as part of the University of Utah's ongoing Martin Luther King Day celebration, including a lecture about race relations, a KUED interview with Angela Davis, a screening of the documentary "American Blackout," and a service project.
* For information, call 801-581-7569 or visit www.diversity.utah.edu. See a list of events at www.sltrib.com.
