white. period, we had not developed what we might call a raise consciousness. -- race consciousness. malcolm x. was an incredible speaker. he held the whole audience spellbound. good.mber feeling so >> you were talking about the effect of the assassination what about the almost connected in time robert kennedy, martin luther king assassination? what effect did they have on you? angela: by that time, i had , i had graduated and

beingtwo years in germany extremely active with the socialist student group there. u.s. ded to return to the i was a graduate student but also almost a full-time activist by that time. when robert kennedy was assassinated in los angeles, i was living in los angeles. mya matter of fact, some of comrades were directly wasstigated because the car left outside a meeting called by communists or something like that. connection.strange ,hen dr. king was assassinated

i was working with an organization. immediately, i can remember exactly where i was. leafletseo graphing for another camp. phyllis: [indiscernible] angela: exactly. way,alized, being in a that we did not move quickly, that the los angeles police .epartment would use that we knew that because immediately after the assassination, this that up machine guns on top of the roof of the downtown police station.

we organize the campaign to ask close inuth-central to deference to the memory of dr. king. lines at all of the stores, including some of the large stores in the mall's. we were actually trying to prevent a ryan -- a ride, but the los angeles police department obviously wanted violence. we learned later they had developed new technologies and new weapons and they wanted probably to try them out. off ae actually dropped young black man whom they had severely beaten in front of the

offices. we had to get him to the office -- hospital and so forth but we realize it was provocative. they wanted us to riot and we were doing everything we could to involve people and organize nonviolent protests. outside fully involved the scope of the university teacher. how did you decide the cap me was where you wanted to be? what made you think this was what i want to do? angela: i never thought about it that way.

to graduate students china to professionalize themselves and have the entire trajectory of their career mapped out, when they will do in here and all of that, i say for atot of us during that time, least for many of the politically conscious students with whom i studied philosophy, we were studying not so much because we wanted to subordinate that to a career but because it allowed us to understand the world. think not necessarily about the professional side of it. apply for ad to position at ucla. i did not go out in search of a job. i often say that had i known that by accepting the job at the focus of so much media attention because of

my membership in the communist party, i probably would have said thanks but no thanks. that is not what i was looking for. i think my career as a teacher occurred because that is the way in which i can most affect and influence people. usednot trying to say i the classroom to dictate what people think, but i try to use to encourage people to develop independent and critical modes of thinking that might leave them to the conclusions that they need to do something to make a difference in the social world. yourn: i am guessing parents profession and their circle of friends also teachers, and the interactions had with teachers over time, both in

lower grades and then mark later, that this set up a model for you of what a teacher and professor could and should be. so, but i must admit, when i began to study notosophy, i did necessarily imagine myself as a philosophy professor. for what itilosophy was able to give me in terms of and conceptual approaches and methodologies that would allow me to better understand the world. that is what i was looking for. the ucla application or request? angela: it just came to me. [laughter]

i am not saying i would not have had to find a job, but that was not the foremost issue in my mind. julian: you would have been in the economy have you achieved this professional certification just naturally, the next step. say thates but i must i was very reluctant for many years to become so wedded to the academy. that it would have an impact on to teach elsewhere. i see teaching is something that happens not only institutionalized, but it happens also in the community. it happens in movements. resistedg time, i becoming so involved that i would have to do administrative work and so on. julian: you may dispute this

characterization bum -- but what do you think, your educational experiences, repaired you for assuming a leadership role? angela: i like to think of not as a series of qualities that prepares one to or give leadership in the world. i like to think of the best kind fromadership as emerging social movements, as reflecting collective ideas and collective aspirations. -- no no injured individual aspirations to be a leader. to ask certain extent, i still don't.

i think what i've learned how to do over the years is to accept responsibility for the vast campaign that developed around my case. people probably never would have had i not been fired from my job at ucla because of my membership in the communist party, arrested and charged with murder, kidnapping, and it happened that at that particular historical conjuncture -- julian: even prior to that, the person angela davis is assuming leadership roles in a variety of ways in the campaign for the sailor having trouble for -- with the navy, los angeles, and areriety of ways, you assuming leadership roles before

anyone outside of your friends and colleagues know who you are. angela: it is also within a collective context. it was a kind of quiet leadership, not an upfront leadership. mentionedxamples you of myed in the aftermath situation at ucla. i am a kind of minor celebrity because ronald reagan this guided i should not be teaching. julian: we have him to thank. angela: exactly. i think i imagine my role as being that of a teacher. , i was the head of the liberation school project. when i worked with the black panther party, i was working

with the political education project. i always did work that involves teaching. i think that would have been the role i imagined for myself. julian: in a way, a teacher is a leader. he or she leaves students toward he or she controls to a degree the classroom and so forth and so on. i do not know if i am stretching too far here, but the fact that teacher speaks a to some level of acceptance of a leadership role. angela: yes and no. best teachers, the best quality a teacher can have is the ability to assist someone to discover his or her own passion. concentrate on

guaranteeing this person knows iis or that and whatever, like to teach my students how to particularlystions about that which they take for granted that lead to real change in the world. what do you see as the difference between vision, philosophy, and style? can you describe the interaction of the three for you? these, if they do, interact for you? yes, i think they do. has always been that of a better and more just and more egalitarian world. i spent many years as an

activist in the communist party. imagine the possibility of moving beyond the democratic, socialist arrangement. i do not know if i can succinctly describe what my philosophical approach is, but i if i were to try to simply describe it, i would talk about a critical posture toward everything's. one about that which assumes is not questionable. this is what i've learned from my philosophical studies, critical theory, that we have to be willing to test even those

categories we use to try to understand the world. that is the one i am having problems with. i do not know whether it is possible to cultivate the style. i will tell you a short story i remember. getting out of jail and will have this idea of me from photographs they had seen, that i was to be a militant, revolutionary, ranting and raving and so forth. disappointedere when they heard me speak and i said, what did they do to you? i said, this is the way i have always been in the way i've always spoken.

i had to finally recognize if i is not sure to myself and if did not have the kind of style that most reflected my upbringing and my character, my definitely didi not -- wouldn't make a difference in the world. i opted for my own quiet style. julian: what did jail due to you? you said people thought jail did something to you and made you not fit the stereotype people thought you were. angela: i think i was able to use the time i spent in jail productively. i say this because even though i was behind bars for 16 months,

there was an enormous movement on the outside. have family and friends and colleagues and comrades all over the world who were concerned about my predicament. i did not feel alone even though confinementitary practically the entire time. was behind bars. i found ways of dealing with that. one thing i remember thinking was being a graduate student was good preparation because one spends a lot of time alone studying and that is what i did when i was in jail. i learned how to do yoga. i practiced in my little cell karate. i made a life for myself and i that had i been in jail longer than that, it would have been a much greater

challenge. i'm not comparing my situation to anyone else's situation. i do remember being very withdrawn when i got out. over a year of solitary life could lead one in a state like that. was profoundly affected emotionally and psychologically by that experience. it.s able to work through and noter getting out the to go with places with a large number of people, going to the dance or something. there was all this attention and but everyone there assumed

they have to have a deep political conversation with me. not going out to social events because it was too difficult to negotiate. but eventually, i learned i had to talk about or think about ast time in my life representing something that was far more important than me as an individual. i had to be willing to accept people's excitement and off -- and awe, recognizing it was not about me but rather the vast movement that developed all over the country and all over the world that managed to ronaldvely challenge reagan, the governor of california, richard and it -- richard nixon, the president of the u.s.

i now see it that way and i do theave any problems with with the kind of awe that people approach me. julian: about both of these things. angela: primarily about the movement. i was in jail. you know that. as a matter of fact, you the elaboration of the movement. i totally appreciate the work in our firsts book. julian: i left that at home. i wanted you to sign it. angela: i have come to think of that movement -- that moment as thatlective empowering demonstrated to us that we had

hoped and we could make change in the world. i have to be the beneficiary of and i continue to see myself as the beneficiary of an amazing movement. julian: i just read an article about people who are put in solitary confinement and the devastating effect it has on them. comparatively speaking, yours is relatively short but still, one thing to describe to the story was the person's inabilities to a large space. once released, they go to the corner. and like that happen to you? angela: absolutely. i remember my body had its .abits

getting the cars with my handcuffed behind me, it took a body to realize i could use my hands to get into a car. being in the large spaces with large numbers of people, yes, absolutely. i do not think we knowledge the degree to which confinement and imprisonment creates mental disorders. say thats it fair to this experience for you was a tremendous motivator for your current interest? high in and intensify your interest? angela: i suppose so. the overwhelming majority in my --e has been working around

when i went to jail, it was around the campaign to free the brothers. already doing work around prison in general. i do not think i would have imagined nat -- imagined than that this would be my calling life tould devote my the work. i think this is the way in which to challenge injustice at its core. julian: people characterize leaders in three ways. either a great people cause great events, b, movements make and critical events chris leaders for the appropriate time. do you fit one of these three?

angela: b and c. exactly. i think movements give rise to the most effective person for the movement. i would like to talk about dr. king. what an incredible leader he was precisely because he was able to express in -- expression to collective aspiration. dayid not simply appear one . the movement arose in response to his presence. often times, we focus so much on him as an individual, that we erase the groundwork, the day today organizing work done by so many people, especially women. the movements made

martin more than martin made the movement. movement make angela davis as much as angela davis made the movement and continues now to make the movement? angela: i think i was a creation respectsvement in many in terms of who i am, my own passion for justice, but also a creation of the movement that developed around the demand to free me, in terms of iconography that the movement created here that does not have very much to do with me. i see young people today wearing t-shirts with my image on it. it used to really bother me at first. it used to embarrass man bother me and finally, i asked the

young woman, why she wear that shirt and she said, it makes me feel strong, it makes me feel powerful, it makes me feel like i can do anything i want to do. my response was, right on. julian: must make you feel good. does, but again, i see that as the strength of that movement. julian: do you see your legitimacy as a leader grounded in the ability to persuade people to follow your vision or your ability to articulate the agenda of the movement, or are these the same thing? increasingly, i see, whatever leadership capacity i have, being expressed in the process of encouraging people to this meansown way,

encouraging people, again, to ask the kinds of questions that will lead them in progressive and radical directions. i do not like the idea of simply persuading someone who will get involved for a moment until they burn out, then they will go back to doing what they're doing in the first place. i like the idea of life trajectories, how do you change people's lives and how do you encourage people to think about future possibilities they never would have imagined themselves. you encourage people to do the work to matter where they are? joinnot demand that people a particular organization or go to a particular place. i say you can be as dr. king said, a trump major for justice

wherever you are and regardless of what path you choose. julian: i wonder if you don't think at the same time that you that thence 100 people issues you care about are important and therefore they shouldn't dedicate time to them, knowing a portion of them will do it only for a short time, isn't that worthwhile in another the, even if it is not hoped-for engagement? angela: absolutely. doingt a lot of time this, trying to encourage people to think seriously about prison evolution. i have discovered, interestingly , 2009, that this moment the aftermath of the election of barack obama has created a kind

of -- to thinking about the issues they had not thought about before. it is very exciting but i do know there has to be a particular historical conjuncture or confluence of events in order to encourage masses of people to begin to an issueiously about such as the evolution of prisons. julian: at a dinner party last night, i listened to a debate by two psychologists who studied whether or not whether or not there was an obama effect. if there was such a thing, it would be a diminution of racial prejudice, not a disappearance. one of them said, of course there is and i can measure it and so forth and i can demonstrate it is true and the other says of course not, i have

measured it and there is no such effect. there is only the slightest bit of difference among people who harbor racist feelings, so i thatr, are you suggesting one of the confluences, that opens the possibility for people. one said yes in the other said no, we are the same people we were before. agree with both of them. we are the same people as before. butproblem still exists there is a different kind of hope, the emergence of new my evaluation of the obama election is that it tells us more about who we are as a nation than it tells us

about obama. the fact that it was possible at this moment to elect not simply an african-american president, but someone who identifies with the black radical traditions struggle, that to me is what is most important. generated tois is a sense of hope that did not exist during the administration. the fact that young people played an important role using the new technologies of communication in this campaign tells us something else. think we should get into a situation where we should say either everything has been achieved by this election or nothing has been achieved. the two like psychologists were, but rather, let us think about it,

announcing new possibilities and creating new terrain, which we can use if we are able to do the work required to build movements for change. julian: at the same time, it is distressing to me that after eight years of an awful president and an awful administration, that it took tos extra ordinary person turn the tide and extort and her people do not come along that so i in my experience, wonder about the future, if we will slip back into our old ways. willing to do anything i can to make sure we don't but i'm fearful we might. is barack position obama is extraordinary. absolutely amazing. but he has a lot of problems and i am critical of him around the

same number of issues as well. towould never have gotten know this extraordinary person had it not been for the work that was done organizing the campaign. that is where i see the hope for the future. i think in this country, we have a tendency to alienate our own power. we like to give it up. we like messiahs. in that sense of the word. responsibilityke to finish what we start. my argument would be, this is precisely the moment when we have to build another vast movement for change. it is precisely the moment to begin to talk about prison abolition. tois an auspicious moment begin to talk about the crisis

of imprisonment, which is not really been on the obama agenda. in very visible ways, at least not during the last period. julian: how does raise consciousness affect your work? do you see yourself as a leader who advances issues of race or society or both? is there a distinction in your mind between these? angela: i do not think we can talk about u.s. society without talking about race. race is in our history and it has affected all of us regardless of what racial ethnic backgrounds we come from. we have not found in language to talk about that. it is not about black people are white people. it is about understanding what made us all who we are.

i am very interested nowadays in the way race or racism is congealed in the structure of so it is unhooked from any individual race thattrator or motivations exist in the prison system. we all have to learn how to talk about that. my relationship in histories of race is somewhat different than what is usually meant. unfortunately, the media assumes the very mention of race opens and alwaysa's box attempts to close it down.

chaosnot let the overwhelm us. it will become more and more chaotic until he finally wished to talk about the degree to which race has influenced our histories. julian: why do you think we have such a history to talking about these things? the assumption is that it is about racial's. already and it is conceptualized in terms of individuals. when weeel attacked talk about affirmative-action for example. what people often feel assaulted without being able to see that something like an affirmative action strategy will make us all

better. it will make us a better community. because it is not about advancing one individual as opposed to another. it is about advancing an entire community that has been so devastated by the consequences of slavery. i think there is such a reluctance to talk about this because people do not weessarily want to learn how continue to inhabit a history structured by slavery, which affects all of us regardless of what racial or ethnic background we come from. julian: do you have a different leadership style when you're dealing with groups that are all back -- all black or mixed were all white? are you different before these groups? angela: no, my message is absolutely the same.

i have not developed the style that would be different. spoke for emery. of course, the audience, the place was packed in the audience was largely black. i talked about the same issues in the same way and the response was really incredible. julian: the authors quote william allen and he writes but the danger of continually , until we learn once again to use the language of american freedom once again, we will continue to harm the country. is there a danger of thesiveness only focus on concept of black leadership? as we do here? i think the most

effective black leadership will be leadership not simply for black people, but leadership for all people. i am convinced that engagement ,ith issues of race and gender which is a lot more complicated because we nots, only have to talk about people who identify as men or women but transgender expression, and what has sexuality, been so fulfilling i think in terms of my own history has been the awareness that we has ever more -- visions of what it means to be free.

in the beginning, if we thought as the barrier to freedom, we had to learn that racism does not exist on its own, that it is connected with an attached with sexism and gender discrimination. then we learned that gender is not binary. that there is much more there than we ever thought. learn about to sexuality. it means our sense of freedom becomes more vast and more interesting. backwards and talk in terms that excluded people of color, that excluded excluded transgender people, that excluded lgbt communities, i think we have to

find a language that is all embracing. lackn: do you think leaders have an obligation to help other african-americans, or is there a time when that obligation ends and you can assume your own hopes and dreams? angela: i think black leaders to helpobligation everyone who is down and not just black people. i suppose the election of obama as the president helps us to whichtand the extent to we might call the black radical freedom tradition has had an impact on everyone. it is not just about black people but it helped to shape movements that lead to greater advances toward freedom.

i do not think narrowly in terms of black people are as a matter of fact, i think it could be dangerous to think narrowly. there are a lot of black people around who do not identify with collective community quests for freedom. i like to think about shaped using political standards and not simply racial standards. i do not count every black person simply because she or he is black as a member of my community. i often point out people responded to the barack obama election by saying, i never and african-american would be elected president in my lifetime. i do not think that is what they meant because had clarence thomas elected president, i do not think people would have gone around saying, i never thought

-- you see what i'm saying. haven: i think there might -- they might have said that. angela: i do not think lack people who were emotionally odd -- awed. julian: nominated to the supreme court, they rally to him because of his race and assumed that his them onnt he was with issues. that was so distressing. i remember some people realized their mistake afterwards. is it part of the historical obligation, because we have come out of such intolerable conditions and achieved change, that we therefore have a responsibility to help others who are like us to do the same? angela: i think black americans

do have a deep historical responsibility to assist others who are subjugated or oppressed. i do not think it happens automatic. i do not think there is a causal between the >> for african-american freedom and solidarity with, for example, immigrant struggles. i think it has to be a point that our movements emphasize that justice is after all indivisible. i never failed to repeat that. justice is indivisible. for example, today, the civil rights struggle involved civil rights for immigrants. civil rights for prisoners.

for lgbthts communities. i think this is one of the major challenges of the moment to persuade such leaders as black ministers to recognize this and communicate the message to their congregation. it is a frustrating part of the struggle. what you see as your greatest contributions as an african-american leader? angela: i think my greatest contribution was probably not my contribution. before that the campaign that was organized in 1970 in the aftermath of my arrest, that reached people all over the world. it stands as a remarkable testament to what is possible today.

the more i think about the campaign, the more extraordinary it appears to me, much more so than at the time. i was right in the middle of it. that, i would say is my greatest contribution, my involvement in massiveuction of a transnational global campaign that demonstrated collective empowerment can work. then i would say, i was listening to someone introduced me. as i spoke at a cost. a professor said something that never occurred to me, that every decade i managed to raise new issues of the

relationship between gender and her. you will have to ask she had a neat way of talking about that. saying summarize that by that i feel most vital when i am most president and when i do not depend on morals of the past when i am listening to and aging with young people at the moment and attempting to contemporary my ideas and my aspirations. julian: what kind of leaders contemporary society demand, how do future problems demand different leadership styles, or will they? angela: yes.

my response to the campaign that led to the election of barack obama that was largely an internet campaign that involved facebook and myspace. i do not know whether twitter and really started then, but texting. julian: i don't know. angela: ok. my response is this. in the 1960's and 1970's, we had technologies of communications. a resolution.made think about how difficult it was people. touch with i am really excited about the possibilities of the future and i think that leadership will

have to listen to youth. to the imagination and creativity and the vision of young people. granted that which we had to struggle for pet i know often times older people are very disgusted -- distressed by the fact that young people just don't know what it meant to struggle to get this far. in a sense, it is good that they don't know. it is good that they can take for granted. they can take for granted what we had to fight for. that way their vision can be much more far-reaching. they stand on our shoulders and they can reach much higher. i think leadership, no matter how crazy young people might leadership has,

to learn how to listen to the voices of the youth. julian: you mentioned that others have said young people don't know the history of the struggles that brought them to where they are. do they have to know, do they need to know, and if they do, ?ow can we make sure >> there has to be a sense of history. we live in a country that encourages historical amnesia. there has to be a sense of that history. but young people cannot know it in the same way that we who experienced it know it. often times, we demand a relationship to the history on the part of young people that our relationship to people who have experienced it. my sense is i am very happy ,ften times when i hear people

not questioning what we had to not, you know, perhaps they know that there was a time when it would not have been possible for a black person to be in an institution like they cannot spend so much time reflecting on that that they forget about what they need to do now that they are here. this is where they are and this is where they begin. this is what we offered them from the past. how can we foster the most effective leaders for the future? angela: by encouraging people to think independently, to think critically, to learn how to passions, toown

develop languages that allow us to talk about the continued need for justice, whether it be racial or gender justice or economic justice. i think the question of developing a new vocabulary is so important, that we are often stuck with old concepts and categories that reflect a particular historical moment, and we see that we are now at another historical conjuncture where that no longer works. then we there the baby out with the bathwater. issues wheref the we fail to develop around race. holder said we are in a nation of cowards. of course, obama did not exactly like the fact that he said that.

i think effective leaders have to encourage that kind of bold, imaginative, creative engagement with the present and the future. julian: there was a time when the kindest party helped you develop your ideas of the world. why are you no longer connected to the party? i left the party not because i felt differently about criticizing capitalism, but because at the time, there were constraints against the further democratization of the internal of the organization, so much so that a number of us ao signed and circulated petition about the need for a

democratization of the structures of governance in the party, were not allowed to run for national office. invitedsense, we were to leave. many of us became involved in another organization called committees of correspondence and democracy. a lot of time has passed and there have been regulation -- revelations about past communist in the party, and i still work with members of the party. i have no bad feelings and i certainly hope we can encourage a vibrant conversation, particularly during this moment about the nature of capitalism and possible socialist futures.

julian: i talked with scholars about how the exclusion of actual communists, the civil through,vement went resulted in creating a movement that looked to the sermon on the -- and gandhi,f instead of marks, for a critique of american society and we suffered tremendously because of that. the absence of the prevalence of the critique created a different kind of movement which had different kinds of aims and goals. angela: i think you're right the although despite i think some of those ideas that involved looking at the economic

structures continued to influence people. of course, when martin luther king was assassinated, he was working with sanitation workers in memphis, tennessee. an indication, a move from a sense of civil rights being the final answer, and more substantive questions of economic freedom. youi absolutely agree with and i think it is such a many of thet so tople who have given so much movements for justice and equality in this country have been completely eradicated from the historical record because we are now just beginning to see interest and for a long time,

nobody knew who w.e.b. dubois precisely because these were tedious people who did maintain did offer something productive for thinking about a change, whether it be radical change in the areas of race or so yes. this is where we have to start playing catch-up, i think. julian: dr. davis, thanks for being with us. angela: thank you. it has been a pleasure. julian: our pleasure. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] click the youth asked me if a first lady should get paid. you can do anything you want to. -- it such agreat

great opportunity to you are going to be criticized no matter what you do. i could have stayed in the white house and poured tea and had receptions and i would have been criticized. i got a lot of criticism. you learn to live with it. >> she was a husband's political partner in their campaign. she attended jimmy carter's cabinet meeting, even testifying before congress. their partnership on health and peace keeping issues has spanned four decades since leaving the white house. rosalynn carter tonight at 8:00 p.m. easton -- eastern.

"first lady's." on the presidency from martha washington to michelle obama tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span3. >> monday on the communicators, we will discuss cyber security threats facing the u.s. and other countries. james lewis for the center for strategic international studies is our guest and talks about with the u.s. is doing to avoid attacks by china and russia. also, cyber security legislation passed by the house and senate. on the program, mr. lewis is joined by tim, cyber security reporter for politico. a very grand mission to defend the nation cyberspace that they have neither the authority nor the resources. they need to think about critical infrastructure.

again, the bill in 2012 would have dealt with critical infrastructure, probably not in saw thet way, and you obama administration put out an executive order that imposed very light requirements on critical infrastructure to protect their network. congress needs to go back and ask if that is enough. >> watch "the communicators" monday night at 8:00 eastern, on c-span2. >> welcome to sacramento, on american history tv. with help from our comcast cable partners, in the next hour we will explore the history of the california capital city. sitting at the confluence of the rivers, it grew rapidly after the discovery of gold along the american river in 1849. it would later become the terminus for the transcontinental railroad. come, visit the califor