Articles

Welcoming Change with Angela Davis: A Reflection

By Madeleine Cerone

February 27, 2023

When she walked on the stage, an auditorium of 600 people shouted and cheered. 300 more on Zoom turned up their volume, and brightened their screens. The students on stage were beaming, standing strong with their questions at the ready, their minds focused for a discussion about society, systematic issues, and ways to work towards positive change. Angela Davis had returned to Hamilton’s Campus.

On February 23, 2023, activist, author, and distinguished professor Dr. Angela Davis came to Hamilton for her first time since 2016. Dr. Davis gave a talk in Wellin Hall at an event titled Welcoming Change with Angela Davis, hosted by the Black and Latinx Student Union, Center for Intersectional Feminism, and C. Christine Johnson Voices of Color Lecture Series. This event was entirely student run, with students acting as stage hosts, ushers, stage designers, planning committee members, and Zoom room hosts. Thank you to Days-Massolo Center Director Paola Lopez, who made all of this possible.

To those of us who do not know Angela Davis, she is a world renowned activist and speaker with a history in the Black Panther movement, and affiliations with Sisters Inside. She is a founding member of a group called Critical Resistance that places emphasis on abolishing the prisons and correctional facilities on a worldwide scale. She is an educator who has spent years teaching at a multitude of schools including Mills College, San Francisco State University, Vassar, UCLA, Syracuse University, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and Claremont Colleges. Currently, she teaches as a Distinguished Professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Dr. Davis spoke about racism, sexism, capitalist systems, social media, and freedom. She talked about asking the “other question”, the one that everyone tends to overlook, about prejudiced and discriminatory practices within society, industry, and administration. Hundreds of pages could be filled with the wisdom inside Angela Davis’ mind (and they have, just check out one of her ten books!) but to choose just one to focus on, she spoke about change in institutions.

Angela Davis pointed out the important reality that oftentimes, institutions have to be pushed, guided, and encouraged to pay attention to the pressing issues of diversity, and lack thereof. Large organizations do not initialize the problems of objectification and oppression that are still ever present in our daily lives. However, that does not mean that they cannot, or will not address them without a little help.

That help, or rather that activism, comes from young people, Angela Davis shared with students in discussion. Rarely do adults push for change, and so the majority of the time this job of poking the bear, shifting the perspective, falls to us - the collective us. College students. Even though this change is everyone’s responsibility, we are the ones with the passion, the energy, and the time. Let’s use it. 

The DMC hopes to be a resource for groups that aim to take charge, to lead bigger, powerful organizations to listen and make progress in order to make our society a more inclusive, equitable place to live and love. Love ourselves, our differences, and our flaws.