Angela Davis

_director

Written by Stephen Vittoria
(Los Angeles)

Angela Davis frames the ongoing systemic injustices of current-day America this way: “The challenge of the twenty-first century is not to demand equal opportunity to participate in the machinery of oppression. Rather, it is to identify and dismantle those structures in which racism continues to be embedded. This is the only way the promise of freedom can be extended to the masses of people.”

Recognizing and deconstructing the inhuman edifices of institutional racism has been the historic target of Angela Davis’s revolutionary drive for more than forty years. A kindred spirit with Mumia since their days of fighting the good fight with the Black Panther Party, Angela’s writings and sharp analysis aimed at building resistance to the corrupt machine are as relevant and inspired today as when she was writing insurrectionary essays from the Marin County Jail in 1971. Her vision and spirit continues to inspire people the world over, people who care deeply about achieving economic justice, personal freedom, and lasting peace in this violent and ruthless system.

Angela graced our film LONG DISTANCE REVOLUTIONARY with her powerful thoughts about the night side of American history and, of course, Mumia’s role in documenting the victories and defeats of freedom and justice in that history. Angela also documents with precision Mumia’s place in the pantheon of Black writers and historians who have courageously spoken truth to power throughout the American experiment. Here’s a clip that’s not in the film… Angela talks about the Panthers, Frank Rizzo, and the racist repression associated with the so-called City of Brotherly Love.