| Angela Davis: An Autobiography | Angela Y. Davis | Random House | 1974 |
The two women wait for the darkest part of night. Only then will they feel safe enough to leave the little house in Echo Park. Outside there may be men with guns or warrants – or both. When the dark is at its deepest, the two women step outside. One of them is Angela Davis. With this scene, a most remarkable woman opens her story. From a childhood on Dynamite Hill in Birmingham, Alabama, to one of the most significant political trials of the century, Angela Davis describes in full the story of her life: from Carrie A. Tuggle Elementary School to the U.S. Communist Party; from her political activity in a New York high school to the Soledad Brothers; from the faculty of the Philosophy Department at UCLA to the FBI’s list of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. In spite of voluminous print devoted to Angela Davis, a curious privacy has always surrounded her – a privacy still intact. Until this publication, no one had managed to provide us with the whole story: What was her childhood really like? How deep were the influences of a Southern and a European education? What precipitated her into political activism? What was her relationship with the Soledad Brothers? How did she elude the FBI? Where did she go? What did she do? Who helped her? This book tells not only what happened, but more important, how she felt about the events, the people, and herself. A powerful and commanding story told with warmth, brilliance, humor and conviction. Of the turbulent sixties, Angela Davis is the last and, perhaps, the only triumphant figure.
Table of Contents
Part 1: Nets
The net will be torn by the horn of a leaping calf…
Part 2: Rocks
I have a home in that rock, don’t you see?…
Part 3: Waters
I go into genesis’ landscape of rumblings, collisions, and waters… – Federico Garcia Lorca
Part 4: Flames
fire eaters from the sun
we shall lay the high white dome to siege
cover screams with holy wings, in those days
we shall be terrible
Henry Dumas
Part 5: Walls
The hand between the candle and the wall
Grows large on the wall…
It must be that the hand
Has a will to grow larger on the wall,
To grow larger and heavier than
the wall…
Wallace Stevens
Part 6: Bridges
Walls turned sideways
are bridges
