educators, health care providers and state and local officials will join health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius in a panel discussion live coverage begins at 940 -- 2.40 a.m. eastern on c-span this week on "q&a," shola lynch producer and director of the newly released documentary "free angela and all political prisoners." youhola lynch, when did first want to know more about angela davis? >> the truth? at shirley chisholm's funeral. i had been thinking about what my next would be next subject would be. previously i had made a film

about shirley chisholm and her run for president in 1972. i was struggling between whether i would choose another woman, black woman, or just pick another topic. there was this huge collage board at her funeral - all these pictures of her with various people, etc. in the corner there was a picture of angela davis, not with shirley chisholm. she was one of the people i had been thinking about. i rocked an angela davis t- shirt in my day. and it occurred to me that was a sign and i needed to investigate more. when i looked into the story i had no idea the story was so good, that it was a political crime drama with a love story in the middle of it. >> where did you go first to try to find out? >> i went back and read her book, looked at the notes i'd written. her book gave me some sense. i started to talk to other people and when i started to read the history books around the events it became clear that there are so many question that have remained unanswered.

>> where is she today? >> she is retired. she was at the time at the university of santa cruz in the history of consciousness department. i believe she was a professor emeritus. but just retired and now is speaking all over the world on justice issues. >> i'm going to run a clip that she did with us in 2004 just to establish for people who have never heard of angela davis what she looks like and the charges against her that we can get more from you about. >> great. >> on august 7, jonathan jackson, george jackson's younger brother, who had participated in that security detail, one might say, used weapons that were registered in my name an entered a courtroom in san rafael, california, the city closest to san quentin and

attempted to -- well, we're not sure exactly what he was attempting to do, but the outcome of that encounter was that a judge was killed, jurors were wounded, and prisoners were killed. i was charged then -- because of the fact that my weapons were found on the scene -- with murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy. >> tell us more. >> one of the things about this story -- so many young people at that time, the revolution was around a corner. how do you explain that to an audience who has no idea. you have to chuckle at. it is the vietnam war, kids are

protesting against the war, protesting for women's rights, the panthers spark are becoming very popular as well. part of the urgency to create change among millions of young people across races was to arm themselves in self protection and particularly the panthers. having a gun was in fashion, very invoke -- in vogue. what happens with angeles is that she's teaching at the university of california and she decides to become a communist. she joins. ronald reagan is governor of that state. he pretty much says not on my watch, not at a state institution, not with my dollars, and tries to get her fired. this gives her a an incredible platform for stand your ground, which she does. she says this is academic

freedom and i have the right to do best. you cannot fire me. she also uses it as a teachable moment to talk about political prisoners. nobody was talking about political prisoners. she was talking about young men particularly getting caught up in the present system on petty charges and being given indeterminate sentences. ,or instance, george jackson three young men in prison. george jackson had been implicated in a crime of stealing $70. there was -- he was given 10 years on an indeterminate sentence of one year to life based on good behavior. he categorized panthers and not only the panthers but the war protesters and political prisoners and young people getting swept up, their bodies being used for the present system to be called political prisoners. >> where do you first meet her?

>> it took me about a year to connect with her. >> why? >> she was not that interested in talking about what happened, this period, the crime, the implications, being chased by the fbi. she was not that interested in talking about the love story either. she was also one of these people you don't necessarily go to directly and i was trying to get. i figured out there were very important people in her life and i chipped away at the people she knew and trusted. i was able to get them involved, write letters, let them see my previous work. slowly she came around and to agree to meet me. this was only after these other people had met with me and everybody, each one of them had seen my documentary on sure elitism, so angela finally walked it agreed to meet with me. we sat down and i was nervous.

she sighed. we sat there like this. her niece, said and will ula two talk to each other? and we started to talk. what she said about the sure elitism selma was i thought i knew the story. she made me realize they're so much about her own story that she cannot know. i am a historian and a documentary filmmaker. i love weaving together various points of view with footage, the facts, the artifacts, and creating the physicalized that makes you feel a moment. i had been able to do that with shirley chisholm's run for president. so she was trusting that i would do that for this very difficult, very intense, very political period. >> let's talk about one and --

one minute and a half from your documentary. [applause] >> i stand before you today as a candidate for the democratic nomination for the presidency of the united states of america. [applause] i'm not the candidate of black america, although i am black and proud. [inaudible] why doesn't always have to be white males? i am not the candidate of the women's movement of this country, although i am noblemen and i am equally proud. i am the candidate of the people of america. [applause] my presence before you now symbolizes a new era in american political history.

[cheers and applause] if you cannot support me or endorse me, get out of my way. and you do your thing and let me do mine. correct that is the best trailer for its the nine have seen. it's better than anything we created. i want a copy. >> when did she die? >> just after the film was released, january 2005. >> were you able to talk to our? >> yes. we were at sundance in 2004. >> to gather? there.she was not he was feeling frail and ill. after ascendants and went down to florida. i had to bring a vcr with me. we only had a vcr copy. i went to her house and showed it to her. it was a spectacular moment for me, because what shirley

chisholm did was she talked to her younger self. she got lost in the movie and in the moment. >> what had gotten you into battle issue with her in the first place? >> i had worked for ken burns for a really long time. i had worked on his piece on frank lloyd wright and then the jazz series, it cannot get any better than that as a job. i started to think, i want to direct. i challenge myself. shirley chisholm's birthday was announced on npr when i was thinking about that. i thought, why do we wait until everyone is passed away and so they cannot participate in the telling of their story? to elitism is alive. i realized she was the first black woman elected to congress. part of what they announced. i did a little research and went

back to the books on my shelf, i was, how did i forget, how did i not recognize that she ran for president? not as a third-party candidate but as a democratic nominee in 1972 plant made it to the convention. she beat half the guys. how did i not know that? >> what about the 1972 election, for people who don't remember anything, did you find the most important part of her involvement? >> the thing to remember is that robert kennedy had been killed, so there was no front runner. he had been assassinated. it was hubert time for, george mcgovern who became the frontrunner, but it was not obvious in the beginning. and ed muskie. there were about 12 candidates total all vying for the same number of votes. putsi found out is she her monica into the presidential ring, as walter cronkite said,

but she had a strategy. she actually knew that if she traveled around the country and collected delegates, if she could get to the convention. because the race was going to be so tight between the three front-runners, her 150 delegates could be the difference between the nominee, which would give her political capital and leveraged. yellhe had a line, you can women's power, like power, and how many delegates do you have?" >> why did hubert humphrey not release is -- why did the release his black delegates tumor? because he knew that he was not going to be the nominee. it was last minute. and not all of them did. >> let's watch more of shirley chisholm. >> all the enthusiasm that was there that a black woman for the first time in the united states of america had the audacity and

the nerve to say she wanted to guide the ship, that she wanted to be president. it was so exciting, but also beneath that excitement of the idea that persons other than a white male could and should be president was part of an entire drama that why is it that in the u.s., only white males could be president? for.here i was, a two- so i was representing a black person and a female person. so my campaign in the beginning womenlot of blacks and around me. that's how that got off the ground. believe me, it was not easy. >> that was from a 1992 interview on c-span. how did that documentary to? = =-- do?

>> critically acclaimed. it was on the film festival circuit. we got picked up by twentieth century fox and has done quite well on the bp. we have sold 50,000 dvd's over time. on president a couple years ago, twentieth century fox sent out an announcement for president's day and had all other documents serious about presidents and presidential candidates. shirley chisholm's front and center. and this was before barack obama. that made me feel very good. >> how much of your documentary is used in any kind of educational institution? >> i get e-mails from teachers, high school teachers, colleges, all kinds of professors and teachers who views the film as an educational tool. the thing about history is that young people are not necessarily going to connect without story. we have forgotten about our story telling. it's not just facts. who cares?

what is the narrative? with my work, i always want to tell your really good story. when there is good music, great visuals, all that collage working together, kids will recognize history is important and they will remember it. and these people will become part of their american family. >> shall lynch started where in life -- shola lynch? >> wow. >> your hometown? new york city. my father was a professor at columbia. my mother was a homemaker, but she had a nursing degree and part of an empty. when they split up, she went back and got her m.b.a. neither one of my parents are american. my father's from trinidad and tobago and my mother is canadian. they are part of that immigrant american story. >> your school?

>> i went to hunter elementary then went to a fantastic liberal arts high school. we got to think about it and talk about a range of issues. thinking was important. it was not just knowing facts. it was how do you analyze them, what do you do with them, what do they mean. >> it's been a serious discussions of our. i have to interrupt to show you the following clip of you. >> i know where this is going. hi, bernie and burped and my andshola. patricia i go? and my friend shola. >> where should i go? >> who? >> you are next to me. >> shola is between ernie and

burt. >> shift. >> how did that happen? >> i was a topic of little kids and i used to run ahead of my mom in our neighborhood. we had neighbors. it was kind of like sesame street. one neighbor said there's this new show that i work for col sesame street and we're looking for kids. my mom said ok and took me down to the studio. i would -- i was good at playing games. >> , shows did you do? but i don't know, but i was potty trained really early. the earliest, and about two and a half. they love to put me next to big bird. i was tiny. i did this between the ages of two and a half and six years of. >> have you shown your kids the

clips? i have and they are amazed. at first the kids are like, wait a second, you are -- and then they think it's the funniest thing >> . how old were you right there? >> about four. >> how old are your kids? >> my daughter is 3 and 1/2. this young person reminds me of my daughter and my son is 5. >> would you let your son or daughter do what you did with sesame street today? >> has, with a show like sesame street. it was not professional. it was fun and games. you did not have to learn lines. you were essentially who you were. i'm not a big fan of professionalizing your children early for any reason. >> your college education? correct university of texas. i was a lady longhorn. >> how did that happen? >> generally that's the way the question is asked.

>> how did you get from the york city to austin? >> i discovered track and field when i was in sixth grade or seventh grade. and i was really bad at it at first. but within a year i became very good and i started breaking records. i broke my first national record when i was 14 doing the half mile. it became this huge passion in my life and i wanted to be an olympian. that was great while i was and hunter. but i wanted to go to school where i could be elect sorely challenged but also -- intellectually challenged but also athletically. jaua ended up at the university of texas. >> we will come back to your background after we want some clips from "3 angela -- free angelyn." >> when these new developments in the black movement happens, the emergence of the black panther party, my feeling was i want to be there. this was earthshaking. this is change.

i want to be a part of that. [sirens] >> revolution is about thinking about things that are radically -- in a radically different way. given the history of america, the idea that black people should be equal and really equal was a revolutionary idea. black people are treated very much as vietnamese people. the police in our community are not there to promote our welfare or for our security or safety but they are there to contain us, to brutalize us, and to murder us. >> do you know what black power means? dignity.wer means >> the fact is some of our fellow citizens have turned against our society, turned against arbuckle.

people that perhaps you don't see or come into contact with. only 40% of the men that live in the ghetto have jobs that pay more than $60 a week. how can you support a family or bring up children in dignity? >> what is your reaction to seeing that from your perspective, your age? >> it's interesting you show that clip after talking about the university of texas. i was not prepared for life outside a little enclave in manhattan, that professor. i really believed that album "3 to you and me from the 1970's," the marlow thomas album. i assure that was the world. so leaving that enclave, i could've gone anywhere. but i went to the university of texas. all of a sudden and race and gender or the most important thing. there were how people evaluated you from the get go. i became very angry person.

once i started to figure it out and i looked to history, because i think i had a great history professor and a great philosophy professor. so i began to investigate that kind of radicalness. i started to understand why the civil rights movement happen the way happened and how the black dancers came out of the civil rights movement. you get tired of waiting and you want to be existing. in angela davis' story one of the things that comes up is this is the moment of the shift from civil rights to black power. what i wanted for younger audiences to understand why and what it was about. it was. flip. -- it was not flip. it was not wearing black jacket and carrying guns. it was really about creating community and say i will not be seen as a victim in my own community. that is powerful. >> how did you show your a

nger at the university of texas? grex i march, rallied, became part of student government, became very interested in academics. i really wanted to change the world. >> what does your major? >> i was a liberal arts, in the plan ii programs like to take all the clauses i wanted to. greta people think you were angry at the school and how were you treated as a black woman? >> i'm not sure people at the school would say that i was angry. i was also an athlete. i was treated as a black woman, depending on the context, as an athlete i was treated like a star. when you are lady longhorn, that is incredible. the racial politics on the team, not so incredible. in plan ii, it was not

particularly diverse. there's a lot of curiosity about blackness, i remember. one blond woman in a sorority set, i cannot even imagine your life, what do you do after classes?" innocent, and at the same time, really? >> why did she not think you would do what she did? correct because that was not her idea of race or black best. also, black folks were not so nice about my particular blackness. >> how? >> there was an aspect of your not really black because you don't talk in a particular way a, because the way you think and all that kind of stuff. i had only known black people and people like me across all colors, across all nationalities. that was the way i had grown up

there that was the craziest thing in the world to me, because i did not understand slavery. it -seeded to our culture in have a strong way that we the residue of it. in terms of race. >> what had your mother told you about race in canada? >> mother did not like to talk about race. she felt like as a white woman in the family she would be left out of that discussion. i do remember i came home one break and i was like all good white people does, white people that." i was sitting with my mom at breakfast. she started to cry. and she said this is my worst nightmare that you would go to college and become a militant and denounce me for my race. i said to her, mom, no, you are different.

all of a sudden i realized that i was insane, race was insane. that saved me. my interest in history and storytelling comes from there, the investigation. what is our narrative, who are we? america is great. democracy is great. we are a plurality. to recognize the greatness and weave them into the greater part of american history will only make us stronger. >> here is your favorite clip. governorof the policy reagan was to do everything possible to repress the radical political movement as they saw in developing. the anti-war movement, students for democratic society, the emergence of the black panther party. angelyn becomes a symbol of all those movements at the same time.

>> there was no precedents in my life for this kind of public exposure. the then there were all threats. told to go back to africa. i was told to go back to russia. oftentimes i would receive letters saying i was going to be dead by sundown. and so, my life completely changed. i bought my first gun because i really feared that i might be in a situation where either the police or agents or other people would take my life. >> what they're doing to her is an exaggerated form of what happens every day to black people in this country. they are saying to those communities through her that people have to straighten up and fly right and be good niggers.

>> the first thing we have to do is make sure that we do have unity in the black community so that when a sister like that stands up, but they don't wiper out but they have to wipe out more than one person. >> denotes she still has a gun? " i don't think she has guns anymore. i think this period turned her off from guns. >> where does she live? >> she lives in oakland. >> what is residual for her personally after all these years? >> related to this story in particular? >> what is her mood? she was acquitted. why? >> there were two theories of the crime. those were her guns. she never said they were not her guns. what the prosecutor's perrywood she was the mastermind of the plot, putting jonathan jackson up to the kidnapping of a judge to exchange for her lover george

jackson, who was in prison. >> how old was donna dachshund? how old was jonathan jackson? >> the b-17 and he was enraged by what was going on with his brother. his brother was one of his favorite people. george jackson had been in 10 years. >> was jonathan jackson never in prison? >> no. he was a bright kid at pasadena high school and was writing angry letters to the school paper about george. people wanted to hang out, kids. he was like, there are people in prison. he was impatient. dadwho weren't the sole a brothers? cravat was the name of the prison where george was being held. patterns are coming in and out of prison. people are becoming if radicalized and politicized. in the tv room, if it was

segregated, he would sit in the front where all the white guys were sitting and not in the back where the black guys were expected to sit. this made him a bad prisoner. he is on an indeterminate sentence based on good behavior. so things escalated. >> what had he done originally? >> he had been in a car where another young man walked into a store, $70 from the clerk, and he was in the car when it drove away. recommended angela davis? >> fell in love with him the first time they met. but it was not a social gathering. he was in court and she was part of the free the soledad brothers. george jackson and two other young men were implicated in a crime, a violent crime in the prison. often you are in prison for one thing and you are then charged with additional crimes. brothers the soledad

was saying these guys were caught up in a petty crime and now they are being charged with other crimes because they're being politicized in prison. >> she was there in the courtroom? >> yes, there to support the brothers. in the 1970's there were no metal detectors. security was some guy in the back of the room. there would be a bannister, like watching "to kill a mockingbird." george walked up to the banister and angela was there. they had one moment before the guards took him away and their eyes met. if i wanted angela in the film wire," but that's not her personality. did it to occur while to see how much she had revealed through interview. so she said, "when i met george

-- andshe fixes her hair when a woman does that when talking about a man, she has revealed a lot. >> what happened to him? >> he was killed a couple years later in prison. apparently a prison break. most people believe it was not a prison break. from the moment they met, they started writing letters. the letters increasingly became more political and more about their passion for each other personally. >> had never crossed your mind in your research that may be george jackson was a bad guy? >> sure. it crossed my mind that maybe angela davis was a bad gal. >> did you ask her about that > >> when you ask somebody -- i did, but not in those terms. i asked everyone around her. i find if somebody is guilty or innocent and i asked are you guilty or innocent, what are you

going to say? me. is like documentary to but there are facts and there's proof and there's evidence. i had access to the fbi files. they had so little to pull this all together. i do with the prosecutor had still been alive. he has been dead for decades. crossandra lawyer just died? >> and lawyer does died. >> yes, and he's in the film. >> the judge was killed where? christie was killed in the parking lot in the van. >> will kill them? >> let's watch the clock and then talk about that because it's an interesting question. >> the funeral for the superior judge harold haley was a major civic event.

escorted by a detail of 60 police officers from cities all over the san francisco bay. was ahaley after all prominent man and his death deeply shocked and angered his peers. his kidnappers, described as hoodlums who call themselves revolutionaries. across the bay in oakland there was another funeral for jonathan jackson, the young panther who was opposed to upstaged the bloody kidnap attempt. >> i and my husband went to johnson's funeral. everybody in their sunday best and, many people weeping. they brought a casket out and mrs. jackson followed, people holding her up and a handkerchief to her face. burqaid to me that he presented something, because that was thousands and thousands

of people on the street. people just came. nobody organized that. while we were standing there, franklin alexander comes up -- we were standing in such a way that he was looking straight as if he was not talking to us and he says "angelyn has been implicated and she has gone underground, so i'm just letting you know." i said ok and then he disappeared into the crowd. >> who is that? >> she wrote a great book about this period. one of the books that i read. >> herb's daughter? >> yes. and she's a women's studies professor. herb was a very well-known communist and she was also a member of the communist party. >> angela davis was a communist. you looked at what calmness was

in those days, did it look attractive to you? >> the idea of economic and social justice is attractive. or trappings of communism the practical reality of communism, not so much. >> she went to the soviet union and was lauded and was lauded in cuba as well. did she really think they had a better deal? during that time, in a lot of ways. did she have criticism for the practice of communism? absolutely. she's no longer communist party member. part of the reason she was interested in it, i think, is because of the economic and social justice, because that has really been a problem especially for people of color. >> it sounded like richard's voice from cbs? was that where you get the clip from the funeral? but i cannot quite remember.

i do want to say one of the things about this revolutionary period was a lot of people were killed unnecessarily. it was real important to have not won funeral but two funerals. this was a scene right after the august 7 incident. because no matter what side you're on politically, you're going to funerals. there was deep regret and sadness about that. >> who -- jonathan jackson? >> the ballistics that were measured and taken were all from that august of an event. it was very unclear who shot who and how it happened. it was also very unclear as to whether or the guards shot first or whether the shooting came from jonathan. >> how? >> it is a court and then over the radio days say there is a kidnapping going on, so every

bit of law enforcement was on the radio waves and came to the civic center. they're all outside. how we have evidence of what happened is there were two photojournalist, one that happened to be there, an independent journal. and one that recall and ran over there, on the radio waves. so two different vantage points while the whole thing is unraveling, taking photographs. it is a documentary film maker's dream. >> where did you find all that? >> it was kept at the archive at merin. one photographer has passed. the other, roger, is still alive. he also had some of the photographs. there's evidence of things that exist. greg, never killed in the incident? >> goodness. the judge was killed, two of the prisoners were killed. jonathan was killed. the jurors that were taken hostage were wounded slightly.

but not major league. prosecuting lawyer at the time was paralyzed. so there was major death and injury. >> the prosecutor, is the dead? >> i don't know if he's alive or not, but he was in a wheelchair the rest of his life. >> what happened right after this? >> foreman? >> angela davis. winds of the event. party had bought the guns? are there all her guns. in fact, one had been purchased about two weeks or the week before this event. brother's a soledad house been opened in san francisco, which is written trial was going to be. so it was in vogue to have a gun in your political office. the interesting thing is when she bought the gun, she's very well known, and the clerk was

like, hey, your angela davis, and she's like, yes, and she signed an autograph. the two competing theories of the crime is either she's the mastermind and she did this and put jonathan jackson up to this. end user own this the defense pretty much was angela davis is not stupid. if she were going to do this, at a minimum, she would not be using our own guns. so it plays out over details in the courtroom. >> hears from your documentary where the fbi begins to search for public enemy number one. >> in the top 10. >> the fbi and the police descended on the black communities all over the country and began pulling in any young, tall, pullman court because they just had a general description.

>> we had fingerprints and photographs of the girl with a big afro. every office gets a box full of those. parked were on cars across the streets -- there were unmarked cars parked across the street and i knew it was the fbi and we were under surveillance. hundreds of black women with big afros are stopped on suspicion of being angela davis. quicktrip defined all that? >> where did you find all that? >> from the court collection. we also know from talking to the fbi agent and we had some of that stuff from the fbi files. and some of that is archival footage. the fbi and law enforcement or not incredibly well practiced at identifying and distinguishing

black women at that time. >> is split in the teeth, does she still have that? >> he ting fu still has a little gap. has ahink she still little gap. >> was that the main criterion to bring someone in? >> the main criterion was the basic description. like women, if you were tall, light to medium skin and had an afro, if you were getting stopped. fania was followed. ever screening i go to, somebody comes up and says the local police thought i was angela davis. so part of it is that the police are not well practiced. it's also a form of from harassment in a way. for a lot of these black women, there was a sense of pride, yes, i am leaving them off the trail. >> what was the date of the

murders? >> august 7, 1970. >> what did angelyn do next in that whole time frame? >> she was hiding out in los angeles at first when she discovered -- and she was always ahead of law-enforcement. she was told about the news report, so she went immediately to her gun closet, all the guns were gone. she said he used my guns. so she hides out in l.a. and then it becomes clear that she's going to have to leave the area. >> what we digress for a closet with the guns? >> in an apartment in l.a. that she admitted previously that had become the brothers meetinghouse. >> the murders happened where? >> they happened in marin county, outside san francisco. >> when did she discovered her guns were missing? >> sometime after the seventh of august, when it started to

hit the news and she was in l.a. and went and checked. the checked. >> how long did she stay on the run and how did she come public? >> she was captured in october in new york city, times square, howard johnson's. >> why was she here and why was she public? >> she was disguised, so she was not public. she was running out of money. i think first she had gone to las vegas and then she was in chicago, where she connected with david poindexter, whose father was also a big person in the communist party, and his mom was a white woman and very wealthy. so he had a little cash and was able to help out. they ended up in miami. that was the time she remained there the longest, in miami. i think she was contemplating whether she was going to leave the country or not, whether she was going to get on a boat and

go to cuba. she decided not to. the fbi is closing in. they are starting -- they've figured out that she is somehow connected to david. they have been tracking him. >> who is david poindexter? >> just a young man who was a member of the communist party as a black man, but primarily it was his father's party. he was a little bit of a businessman in chicago. >> did she ever get married? >> she did, in the 1980's. i was very surprised to know that she has a notice in people magazine, 1982 or 1983, "angelyn davis mary's photographer -- marries photographer." but they were divorced later in the decade. >> if she married now? >> she is not. >> the trial and the jury, when what she tried and what was the jury made up of? >> it took a long time to get to trial, it took a long time to

figure out the judge and all the parties to agree. and the location of the trial. so angela and her team wanted it in san francisco. the prosecution did not appear they wanted it in marin county. there had to be a compromise. >> explain the difference. >> marin is where august's seven happened there would be an angry community of people. most likely she would've been convicted. >> that is across the golden gate bridge above san francisco. >> exactly. the marin county courthouse is a frank lloyd wright building, beautiful, like a spaceship landed in the hills. so the trial ended up in san jose, -- >> which is south of san francisco. >> a working farmer community, not particularly the first, but more diversity than marin county. the jury was all white except for one hispanic male. >> how did that happen? arehe voters, if you

registered to vote, you are up as a potential juror. that's how it happened. >> did you look into what the pool was and whether there were black people available? >> there were black people available to the one black person who had come up in this, the prosecutor got rid of. the defense try to keep her on. one of the things the defense did that's not in the film,, there were very good about jury selection. they got the list of voters. they had an army of volunteers and they literally went out to campus and get surveillance, but they could about each voter. in other words, what were the bumper stickers on their cars, who had they voted for, public record stuff. they figured out, of the potential voters, these are the people we are interested in, and they had spread sheets, and with no computers. >> how long did the trial go? until trial was not over

june of 1972. >> and a decision? >> she was acquitted. >> the men? >> [indiscernible] >> did it surprise you when you when back and look at everything? put in the facts about all the articles about being chased by the fbi and conspiracy murder, and include the articles that include the trial and acquittal, it's probably this big. so what are we going to remember? people said you had to go to cuba to interview angelyn, that's amazing? i said, no, that this shakur. >> where did you interview angela? >> in oakland. chris ault about your sister?

>> she was a lawyer and now she runs a nonprofit. >> here's a clip. >> ms. davis turned and gave a black power salute. she sat down next to her two temporary lawyers. the judge ordered a copy of the charge delivered to her and advised her of her rights to an attorney and of a jury trial. >> with the attorney general arraigned be in california after the extradition he indicated that he wanted the death penalty on each of the three charges and he wanted the death penalty 3 time. that made me realize how serious they were. again, it made me realize that it was not about me. first of all, i cannot be killed three times. it was about the construction of this imaginary enemy. i was the embodiment of that the enemy.

crowd shouting angela must be freed] >> we had a nice long visit with angela and she is in very high spirits. she's feeling good. she's feeling good because she knows that the movement to free all political prisoners is growing every day. that's what makes a feel-good. >> who r the two people in the clip? >> her sister and her brother. thewhat happened after acquittal verdict of angela davis? the world, thank you to the people who had been all of the free angela and political prisoners movement, which was a worldwide movement. she did that for a year and talk about justice issues. it has become her life. so she return to academia and she still troubles and talks and is a public intellectual.

>> after -- by the way, how long is this? >> 101 minutes, feature-length. it is essentially the story of how this 26-year-old philosophy graduate student becomes an international political icon. you are really seeing her make the choices and the repercussions of them and how it grows into something so much larger than her as an individual. >> from the time you graduated from the university of texas up to your first documentary on shirley chisholm, what did you do in that time period? >> i got my master's in american history from the university of california riverside. i was also continuing to run track. i was running for footlocker, so i was completing -- competing nationally and internationally. i ran until i was 27. i was not going to give up the olympic dream. i had qualified for the 1996 trials and i damaged my back.

i knew i was getting too old./ i came back to new york looking for jobs. i wanted to excel historical stories in multimedia, curator. i cannot find a job doing that. that was when newt gingrich cut back on the arts. by luck, i landed a job with ken burns. luck.t be morge than " i had gone to the brooklyn historical society. a had a job posting and wanted the job so bad. it was low paying. they said, we hope you are unemployed and six months because we have a freeze. but i looked nice and i had my bag and i was depressed. i went to an art gallery event right after. was my maind cheese motivation. in the corner, and before i had the wine by the way, wre two men talking about films and i went i thought and i said

the filmmakers were geeks, it occurred to me, and i ask them if they were involved in the film business and they said yes, and not in a friendly way. how about documentary filmmaking? yes. historical documentary filmmaking? and one of them said yes. i said i need two minutes of your time. i gave them my story that i was looking for jobs and thinking about filmmaking. he gave me his card and he's a senior producer for ken burns. i had already sent my resume. he said i might be able to help you. why don't you give me your resume and i will take it to the office. buyah. i didthe opportunity, research for the riders. i knew how to annotate. >> you had interesting financial backers. >> yes.

raising funds for films are not easy. you go through grants and do all that. even then you sometimes find out you don't have enough. i've been very lucky with both films if, through friends, to the book to get some celebrity monica quan. the shirley chisholm's simcom opal in for gave us a little money and halle berry and because these. the angela davis gaveys alsoh the 40 shirley chisholm's film. for the angela davis film, i sent a hail mary pass e-mail to anybody who ever said they could raise money. a girlfriend in harlem said i can do it. she was good friends with jada pinkett smith. >> the wife of will smith. >> yes. she showed up and stood up for

the film. .he brought the guys when women stand up for women's stories, they will be made. >> how did jay-z get into it? >> they went to him and showed him the film. i have never met him, and he said yes, i am down. >> your husband, a shy man in manhattan. vince morgan is a very gutsy man. he believes as a politician he can do right by the people, the citizens. if he ran for congress against charles rangel. he's now running for city council here in harlem hand has a great chance of actually being in the mix and winning the seat. his ideas, there are so many resources available to us that we are not taking advantage of. he -- we are part of that

generation where we take a little bit outside the box and have the energy and excitement to take resources and make them work. >> where did you meet him? >> in a bar. >> in manhattan? >> in harlem, baby. >> how long have you been married? not onlyhas never working on this angela davis film. now that it's over, we do wonder what we will have to talk about in the evenings. >> what is the next documentary? >> i would like to write the book. the film was so much original research that we honor it for angela davis, and in the process of getting those materials together to write the book. of in terms of films, i would like to reimagined. tubman as an action her win. i would like to do the documentary but it will also be a major action movie. is it possible that she could see herself as a whole person under the violence of slavery,

the physical, emotional, psychological? how it is it? and that she had the ability to cloak yourself in and visibility, be a freedom fighter and return over and over again to be a general in the union army? that is an action story. >> when will the book come out? >> i'm working on that. but it's going to happen. if i say i'm going to do it, i am going to do it. >> can you by "free angelyn?" >> we will be out on video on demand and on dvd's soon. next year it will be on television. thet now you can tug.com film. it should be seen with an audience on the big screen and you need to talk afterwards. >> shola lynch.

we're out of time and we thank you very much. >> thank you. this has been wonderful, really. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> for the dvd copy of this program ofcall -- for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit our website. "q&a" programs are also podcasts. as c-span comcast >> next, live, your calls and comments on "washington journal a briton live at 11:00, a discussion about the 2013 social security trustees report with the chief actuary of the social

security administration. at 2:00 p.m., the u.s. house of representatives gavels in four general speeches. -- for general speeches. >> she makes the first speech by a sitting first lady. becomes the first president of the daughters of the american revolution. designs are on china and establishes the white house china collection superpac. and is the first to have a christmas tree in the white house. meet caroline harrison, wife of the 23rd president benjamin harrison, as we continue our series on first ladies, with your questions and comments. as well as on facebook and twitter, clive a 9:00 eastern on c-span, c-span3, c-span radio, and c-span.org. >> this morning on washington journal, and national review reporter looks at the republican strategy in congress as it returns from a weeklong recess. then the democrats plan with the texas congressman. and later, the director of

transportation for america, discusses how the federal government engages the safety of bridges and funding for repairs and upkeep. washington journal is next. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning and welcome to "washington journal" on this monday, june 3. the house and senate return to washington today, facing an agenda that includes investigations into the irs, immigration reform, and an agriculture bill. later this week president obama will meet with the china president at a summit in california. we would like to hear from you this morning. what should the u.s. relationship with china be? here are the numbers to call.