12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/1818 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test 12/24/18 12/24/18 democracy now! test amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! angela: you know, i've said many timemes that, you know, there's all of this discussionon about terror and the threat of terror, and the islamophobia that goes along with it, but there's never any acknowledgment of the extent to which terror shaped the country, and especially the south. and no one did anything about it. amy: today, angela davis for the hour.

she'll talk about growing up in alabama amidst the ku klux klan's deadly terror campaign to her time on the fbi's most wanted list. once caught, she faced the death penalty in california. aretha franklin offered to bail her out. acquitted, angela davis has spent her life fighting to change the criminal justice system. angela: the fact that we now can openly call for the abolition of impmprisonment as the existing mode of punishment, and ththe abolitioion of policig as the major form of security in our worlds, we o owe that to people who stod up for me e many dececades ago. i'll never forget that. amy: angela davis, for the hour. all that and more, coming up. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org,

the war and pepeace report. i'm amy goodman. today, we spend the hour with the legendary activist and scholar angela davis, professor emerita at the uniniversity y of califo, santa crcruz. for more than four decades, davis has been one of the most influential activists and intellectuals in the united states, an icon of the black liberation movement. angela davis's work around issues of gender, race, class and prisons has influenced critical thought and social movements across several generations. she's a leading advocate for prison abolition, a position informed by her own experience as a prisoner and a fugitive on the fbi's top 10 wanted list more than 40 years ago. once caught, she faced the death penalty in california. after being acquitted on all charges, she spent her life fighting to change the criminal justice system. i recently spoke to her in washington, d.c., just before the midtererm elections, at busboys and poets.

i began by asking her about her connectionon to the late great soul singer aretha franklin. the lastst time e i got a chane to talk to you, angela, we tracked you down your last morning -- i'm sure you appreciated this -- in martha's vineyard. right? it was in august. it was the day that aretha franklin died. so why were we looking for angela? because of their connection, that hardly gets attention today but, i think, says so much about both women. and i wanted to read a quote of araretha franklin, who told jet magazine in 1970, "my daddy says i don't know what i'm doing. well, i respect him, of course, but i'm going to stick by my beliefs. angela davis must go free. black people will be free. i've been locked up for disturbing the peace in detroit

and i know you got to disturb the peace whenen you c can't get t no pe. jail is hell to bebe in. i'm going to see her free if there is any justice in our courts, not because i believe in communism,, but because she's a black woman and she wants freedom for black people. i have the money; i got it from black people -- they've made me financially able to have it -- and i want to use it in ways that will help our people." [applause] amy: what did that mean to you at the time, aretha franklin saying, "i want you free"? angela: i was in jail at the time, of course. and when i learned about it, it was one of the most moving moments i experienced during that time, because, of course,

aretha had already provided the soundtrack of our lives,s, you know? and i was just, you know, so moved and so uplifted that she was willing to pay my bail. but i should tell you, bail hadn't been set at that time. it's anan interesting story. i was charged with three capital offenses, every y single one of which was unbabailable. and so, at that t time, i had some arguments with people who were organizing, who wanteded to do a bail movovement. and i'm sitttting in jail, and i said, "but i'm ineligible for bail. what's s the point?" but they proved me wrong. and people all over the world signed petitions. and then, eventually, interestingly enough,

the state of california temporarily abolished the death h penalty. and my lawawyers tried the b bet to get in touch h with aretha, but she was in the caribbean atat the time. amy: the west indies. angela: and that was a different era. you're used to money, capital, flowing with ease over national borders. therere was no wayay that she cd get the money to us in time. anand so, this white farmemer by the name of roger mcafee, who had a farm in central california, showed up at my lawyer's office, and he said, "i'm willing to put up my farm." and the thing isis, had i not gotten out at that moment,

i wouldn't have gotten out on bail, because immediately the suprememe court ruleled that all capital offenses that were previously ineligible for bail would remain ineligible. and so t there was this tiny windowow. and aretha, by publicly anannouncing that she was going to pay my bail, made everybody listen. and so, i like to think that it was aretha, you know, who bailed me out. and she did. amy: you know, we have a terrible problem in this country even with all of the media, with all of the channels: history gets erased soso quickl. and i see so many young people here today, and i was wondering if you c can tell that history, because each of the moments in your life were a political struggle, to say the least. i mean, we could -- and we will l --

go back even further, toto where you born, to birmingham, but since we're talking about this moment, 1969, governor ronald reagan wants you thrown out of ucla as a professor, as a teacher, because you're a communist and he wants no communist voice there. is that right?t? angela: yeah. [laughter] angela: and, you know, i never expected to be the center of attention in that w. i jujust wanted toto teach phphilosophy. and probably, had anyone told me that i would be firedd by ronald reagan and that this huge uproar all over the country about the fact that a communist was teaching at ucla --

i mean, i thought the mccarthy era was over, you know? because there was a period where if you were a cocommunist, you were not able to teach, you were not able to make movies. you all know about the mccarthy era, right? ok. i always say, even if you don't have actual memory, you can have historical memory. so this should be a part of our historirical memory. but yeah, ronald reagan. oh, god. you knknow, it's so interesting that at these moments, when people like ronald reagan were elected, when people like richard nixon, we never expected that it could possibly be any worse.

george w. bush. i meanan, the current cucupant of 1600 0 pennsylvania avevenue makes george bush look a lot better than he looked at the time. and that's weird. amy: but before wewe go there, 1970, you're fighting, as you fight today, more than 40 years later, against the prison-industrial complex, to free the soledad brothers, and there's a shootout in the marin courthouse. and that's what led to your charge, your charges. today, washington state's supreme court overturned the death penalty in washington state, making it the 20th state. but your experience -- and i think a lot of young people may not realize this -- comes out also of your own experience in jail, in prison.

you faced three death penalties, three death sentences? anangela: yeyeah. you know, amy is a reaeally good i interviewer, you know? yeah, 1969, i was fired from ucla, and that was a prettyty difficult year. i got literally hundreds of death threats. i had to be ushered from classroom to classroooom by thehe ucla campus police. ththey had to start my car up

to make sure there wasn't a bomb planted. and they ushered me to thehe edge ofof campus, because they wteted to guauarane that i was not killed on the campus. i mean, that was really their role. and i say this because it meant that i had to have security 24 hours. and i had to have someone move into my apartment with me, because i lived alone at that time. i had to have e someone -- i had to have armed security 24 urs s a day. and i i had -- i pururchased a couple of guns, that were used by the people who were doing security fofor m, you know, particularly when i was speaking. i should say that around the same time, we learned about the case of the soledad brothers --

george jackson, john clutchette, fleeta drumgo -- and began to do organizing in southern california. there was a committee in northern california to free the soledad d brothers. we c created a committee in s southern california. and george's younger brother jonathan, who was an amazing, really beautiful young man who o was an incredible writer, wrote -- he ote poetryry. he was also deeply d dedicated to his brother. and i give you all of this information because at one point jonathan, who had been doing security for me, took those guns that i had boughtht for my security, and went into the marin county courthouse.

and we''re still not e exactly certain what the plans were, but it seemed that he was going to call for the freedom of his brother and the soledad brothers. george was in san quentin at the time. they had been moved to san quentin. and there was a trial happening in the marin county courthouse that involved a number of san quentin prisoners. jonathan went into the courtroom and brought the judge out with some of the jurors into a waiting van. and then, as we discovered during my trial, it was the san quentin guards who opened fire, who were responsible for the death of the judge

and the other prisoners and jonathan. and it was horrendous. it was really horrendous. i can remember, we examined some of the san quentin guards during my trial and asked what their policy was wiwith respect to escapes. and they said their policy wasas to prevent escapes at alall cos. and so, we s said, "w"well, if it means thehe deah of one person or 20 persons, does that still hold true?" and he said, "yes." ifif it meant the deathh of one child or 20 chiren?n? he said, "yes." so, anywayay, i was charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy because the gu were registered in my name. and --

amy: y you had a major d decisin to make at that time, and you decided to go underground. angela: well, i wasn't going to turn myself in. [laughter] [applause] angela: you know? i mean, we all -- we were alall very much aware of what had happened to lil' bobby hutton, an 18-year-old member ofof the black pantherer party, when he tried to surrender to police and was killed. and it was really y interesting, an interview -- or, rather, a study was done, a poll was taken,, of people in los angeles in black communities. anand the questition was wtherr theyey thought thatat i was doing the right thing by leaving. and it was like 90 percent said yeses,

because they knew the los angeles police department,t, anand they k knew how ny peoeope had been killed by the pololice department. so, you know, it never even crossed my mind to turn myself in at that time. i was thinking that, you knonow, maybe in a more auspicious moment, you know, maybe if organizing were done and -- i mean, i didn't get to do that, because the fbi caught up with me, and i was actually captured by the fbi, which was another story, but -- amy: in new york. angela: yeah, i was in new york. well, i was actually running from the fbi, because -- you know, people h have this r romantic ia about what it means to be underground.

but, you know, in a sense, i was almost r relieved, because every time i saw a white man in a suit, i assumed it was the fbi. and if i had stayed underground any longer, i probably would have had a heart attack, so... amy: it's almost exactly 48 years ago, 1970 -- it was october -- thatat you -- that they got you -- right? -- and put you at bedford women's prison -- is that right? -- one of the places yoyou werere held downtownwn in the village of new york city? angela: yeah, it was t the women's s house ofof detention in greenwich village, yeah. yeah, they took me -- first they tookok me to the fbi's office.. i mean, they -- well, i'm having to go back inin my memomory 48 years. and i reremember being onhehe elevatorr and knowing that they had found us.

i was traveling with a man by the -- who was actually really amazing. and he ended up being arrested -- david poindexter. and he finally beat the case. but i i remember -- we were going up to the hotel room, and i remember thinking that this is it. i coululd sense that i it was going to happen.n. and as soon as we got up to the floor, they grabbed me, they grabbed him. they snatched -- i had a wig, because i was in disguise. they snatched my wig off. and -- only time i've ever worn a wig in my life! and my brother saw -- my b brotr saw a picture or something,

and he said, "that's not my sister." but they kept asking me, "are you angela davis?" and, you know, i learned when i was a very young child not t to talk k to the fbi. you do not say anything to the fbi. i learned when i was 5 years old, when my parents' friends, who were communists, were underground, and the fbi would always try to get information from us. and i'd learn not to say a word to the fbi. so, the only thing i did say to them, eventually, was s that i want my p phone ca. but yeah, yeah, that was a pretty dramatic momont. yeahah amy: so you're sitting i in jai. they are going to fight for you to be extradited to california. you were figighting ththat, andn they just put you in a van and started moving you west?

angela: well, i was in jail for -- let's see. i was arrerested on october 13t, and i was in jail untitil novembmber. so there a are lots of stories that happened at the women's house of detention. they're really important stories, because i think i learned there. it was the only time i was ever in general population, because my lawyers fought for me to be removed from solitary confinement, so i did have contact with the women there. we did do -- as a matter of fact, we did organizing around bail. and it's so interesting that 50 years later, 50 years later, ththat raiains the issssue. and so, there were people on the outside, and it was great that the jail was in greenwich village, because people could just gather outside,

and you could talk to them out of the windows. and so -- and i mention this in my autobiography, that when i was in high school, i went to high school in greenwich village, and i reremember going -- walking by that jail and hearing the disembodied voices and not really knowing how to respond. and then, it turns out, later, i'm ththe disembodied voices calling out to people to contact an attorney or -- we did a lot of organizing in that way. and we were able to organize the womemen inside so that there would be collective decisions regarding who got out on bail after the money was raised by people in the community. it was really quite an amazizing experience. i learned a lot from -- the more i think about it, the more i realize how that experience really shaped me.

you know, later, i started to do yoga in jail. i had never heard of yoga. i mean, there weren'n't even any yoga mats at that titime. there was no such thing as the yoga industry. but i developed a yoga practice when i was there. i learned -- i learned a lot from the women. i learned about the need for self-care. and, yeah. amy: v vegetarianism? angela: oh, yeahah, i became a vegetarian. nonot becaususe i wanted to at the time. i'm sorry. i i mean, i'm still -- i'm vegan now, so this is a conscious decision. that was not a conscious decision. that was because the meat had maggots in it and was so bad that i told them i did not eat meat. and i had no idedea that once i i got out and i tried to go back to eating meat, it wasn't going to work, so...

and then, eventually, of course, i learned about all of the reasons why we should be engaging in conscious eating and not be particicipating in the ininflicting of violence on- you know, for the sole purpose of producing profit. amy: the legendary activist and scholar, dr. angela davis. we'll return with her in a moment to talk k out prisonon guards killlling george j jackson in 1971 1 at san quentin. we'll also talk to her about the prison abolition movement and more.  [music break] amy: this is democracy now!,

democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman, as we return to my conversation with angela davis. i spoke with her in october at busboys and poets, a cultural hub andnd restaurant in washington, d.c. i justst was at san quentin a few weeks ago. one of our felellows at demococracy now!, she worked at the san quentin news,

and we went into san quentin. and the first thing the pronerers showed u u as we walked in the prison, they pointed and said, "this is where george jackson was gunned down." the first thing they showewed us. thisis was agonizing for you. angela: yeah. august 2 21, 1971. george was killed by san quentin guards. and it was during that period, there was so much going on that it was -- we could hardly find the time to mourn and to grieve, because something else would happen. jonathan had been killed almost exactly a year before that.

that period was so compressed in so many ways and i'll never forget what my attorney howard moore and margaret burnham came to visit me. at that particular time i was back in solitary confinement because i had been extradited to california. amy: and you chose to have black attorneys, which is a very important statement. angela: well yeah. the thing is, there were so many political prisoners during that period. there were really good attorneys. kuntzler was amazing, right? but ththere were also black attorns s who were c committed, who had a history in civil rights activism.

like howard moore, margaret burnham, who is my closest friend in the world. and we always say that we'venown e eh otheher since before we were born, because our r mothers were pregnant together and our mothers were best friends. and she was the first person to show up at the jail. anand she stayed with me, she's s the only attororney who was with me from the very beginning ununtil the acacquittal happppd whwhich meantt that she had to bring her son who had cerebral palsy. that post a whole number of challenges. she moved withth him to c california. i will never forget margaret's --

margaret's amazing. you all should know her, as a matter of fact. she's had about five different careers. she was a civivil rights attorn, she was my attorney for two yeyears, she e was a judge in boston, she ran an international law practice, she helped to write the constitution of south africa. now she has a project, then she became a legal scholar and teaches law at northeastern. she has this program is called civil rights and restorative juststice where she investigates cases of black people in the south were killed or who had their property taken away from them were lynched in alabama and georgia and mississippi. louisiana. so, yeah.

i have three black attorneneys. amy: your third lawyer was. angela: leo brenton. amy: and he's the one who in court, turns to the jury and said, be black for a minute. bebecause the idea thatt you went underground, he said, you will automatically think that means she's guilty. but change the color of your skin and don't worry you can go back in just a minute. and think what you would do. think what you would do if you were black. in america at t that time. and the police were going after you. and the fbi. amy: leo's first love was drama. he studied drama. [laughter] angela: and so he had this sense of how to capture the attention of the jury.

many many years later,r, we were atat harvard.. charleles ogletree did an event at which he inviteted me and my siblings and the attorneys. and leo remembered word for word thehe closing argument. and he stood up in front of these students. this was in the 1990's. and gave the closing argument again. amy: is it trurue that at one point they sat a woman, a good friend of yours next to you, to show the unreliability of eyewitness accounts? angela: yeah. my friend kendra alexander. with whom i was active in the communist party and a number of other organizations. she did legal work throughout the trial.

as did her husband franklinn and my sister. and so she sat at the table with us. and this witness was poisedd to identntify me. and he identified kendra. amy: they said is she in this roomom today. angela: exactly. the role of these perry mason momentnts in the trial. amamy: you were released on bai. and described the moment of the jury coming back in. your family, your whole family was there. but your mother was too nervous to come into the courtroom. angela: : yeah, my mother didn't want to come in. and margaretet who had knownwn my mother sisince she was born said, sall. we all learned to call the parents by the first namame. that was sort of like a communist --

margaret said sally, you can't stay out. you have to come in. anand she came in. but what was interesting was that margaret was the one who was so totally composed and she totally had it together. she wawas the atattorney. but as s soon as the jury walked into the couourtroom, , shlosts. her hands went up. but the jury announced the verdict. franklin sobbed out loud. you u heard this loud voice of this man crying. franklin was another close comrade friend who did ororganizing around the cas amy: one, , two, three, the charges were read.

and you were found not guilty on all three charges. [applause] angela: yeah. amy:y: you walked out into the sunlight and the next chapter of your life began. angela: well, you know, we had a party that night. and -- champagne, it was great. and then the jurorors wanted to get together so i got to -- [laughter] angela: i actually became really good friends with the foreperson of the jury whose name was mary timothy. but then the very next day, we got together and decided that something had to be done

to keep the whole apparatus together that was responsible for organizing around the demand for my freedom. because initially, it was the national united committee to free angela davis. and during the time i was in jail, i looked at all of the women who were there who had no resources, who had no access to attorneys. and i said, this can't just be about me. and so the name was changed, the national united committee to free angelala davis and all political prisoners. and so the very next day.

-- to move to a nenew phrase. how we could create a new organization. we created an organization called the national alliance against racist and political repression.. some of the first cases where the attica brothers because the atattica rebellionn had happened in 1971 september right after george was killed. there was the case of reverend bench avis and the wilmington 10. there were so many casases. lolita lebron who was still in prison at the time. amy: the puerto rican independence activist. angela: yeah. so we immediately began to do ththat work. and i mention it because oftentimes we don't get to see the history,

the trajectory that makes it possible to engage in certain kinds of political actions, 20, 30, 40 years later. and so i think that we were helping to lay the foundation for movements against racist police violence today. as a a matter of facact, we had a caucus whin ththe organizazatn that was very specifically concerned with stopping police violence.e. amy: 47 years ago, george jackson was killed. and on the 47th anniversary, this year, 2018, the prison strike lasted three weeks from the gunning down of george jackson to the attica uprising.

and prisoners around the country once again in this year rose up. at great possibility of retribution against them. went on hunger strike. wewent on work strikes. angela: yeah. that national prisoners strike was so important. we often don't recognize the degree to w which the historical memory that i was talking about bebefore please such an imimport part in the lives of prisoners. prisoners, even yoyoung people whwho ve b been recentntly arred and sentenced to prison are politically educated. they learn from the old timers about all of the events that have happened over the years,

the significance of george jackson, all of the campaigns that took place in the 1960's and the 1970's. they actually do a much better job than people in the free world of p preserving historory. and of course the fact that we e now can openly call for the abolition of imprisonmenent as the existing mode of punishment, and the abolitition of pololicig as the major form of security in our world. we owe that to people who stood d up many y decades a. i'll never forget that. amy: and just before we move forward,

i wanted to go back eight years to 1963. because this is also another anniversary and it's close to your home because it's where you were born. september r 15, 1963. the blowing up of the birmingham church in alabama. a church you knew well. you were 19 years old. where were you on that sunday when that church, thatat icon within b birmingngm wawas blown up and killed the four little girls? angela: i was in france. i was spending my jr. year studying in paris. and when i learned about the bombing ofof the 16th street baptist church, i was ththere.

in those days, technology and communication was not what it is today. you couldn't just text somebody. i called my family maybe oncnce every two o months when i was there. and soso that was a phphone cal i ststill vividly reremember. and my mother was very good frfriends with the mother of carol robinson.n. and i've said many times almost all o of the girls were close to our fafamily. cynthia lived right, two doors away from us. carol was my sister's best friend. she had taken carol's mother

whose name was alphabliss robinson. if any of you have seen spike lee's films for little girls, -- f four little girlsls, she is interviewed in that. she called my mother and said would you please take me to the church because i have to pick up carol. something has happened there. and so my mother was there when she discovered what had happened. to her child. we could talk about that incident, but i think it's also important to realize that that wasn't the first time the church had been bombed -- a church had been bombed. often people who are not from the south don't realize that that was a routine expression of racist terror.

it happened all the time. amy: did you grow up on dynamite hill? angela: yeah. where i lived was called dynamite hill because so many houses were bombed. the church i attended whicich ws a couple of blocks from the house was burned when i was 11 years old because we had an interracial discussion group going on there. so i've said many times that all of this discussion about terror at the threat of terror and the islamophobia that g goes along with it, but there's never any knowledge of the extent to which terror shaped the country and especially the south. and no one did anything about i it. amy: so have you ever had a discussion with another woman who was born in birmingham?

the former national security advisor condoleezza rice? angela: not the one you are talking about. no. i -- amy: slightly different trajecectories of life that came out of birmingham.m. condoleezza and angela. angela: yeah. [laughter] angela: all kinds of people are from birmingham. [laughter] angela: but you know, i actually did read her autobiography y a while ago. and i realized that there was a major difference. [laughter] amy: i didn't read her autobiography and i had already figured that out. angela: but you see, one of the things i learned growing up in birmingham

was to really treasure community. and i learned that an injury to one is an injury to all. [applause] angela: and i i got the sense of -- i'm acactually really glglad i w up in ththat segregated world. because it taught me about the possibilities of community. i can remember our teachers when the white men from the board of education would come to school and call the teachers by their first name. because that was one of the ways inin which they gaveve expressin toto their racism. and so the teachers would stand d up and fight back and end up losing their jobs just for speaking up to the white board of education representative. so i felt this closeness.

ththe reasonon i make this poit is because in condoleezza rice's autotobiography, she points out that she was reared to think of herself as someone who had to stand out. who had to be better than anyone else. who had to -- if we are running a race she always had to be five miles ahead. we all learned that if you are black, you have to o be 10 times beer than white people. amy: you faced three. angela: condoleezza rice wanted to be 10 times better than all black people, too. and i don't think she grew up with that sense that -- of the power of community. she grew up with a sense of the need to stand out as an individual.

and i think that's the fundamental difference. amy: the legendary activist and scholarly dr. angela davis. we will return to o her in the morning -- in a moment to talk about challenging capitalism, fightingngor justicece and what gives her hope.e.  [music break]

amy: this is d democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodmaman. as you return to my conversation with former black panther angela davis, professor emerita at the university of califorornia santa cruz. you go back anand look at 1968 and you look at today. how does it compare from the protest at san francisco state and columbia university. the protests in paris and france. the level of organizing of course that year to the assassination of both dr. king and robert kennedy.

but the level of organanized tookok place then and what's happening right now. does this give y you hope? angela: absolutely. absolutely. and i think atat gives me e hope is the extent to which young organizers have been able to build on the work of those who came before them. and i am so impressed by young organizers and dream defenders, black lives matter, black youth project 100, surj. you know, white people are really beginning to change significantly. i mean, i'm remembering that -- [laughter]

angela: you know, it used d to e that we assumed racism was just about attitude. right? and so the only way you can deal with a racist is to say, you should go to an unlearning racism workshop. this is what people who made these public, these racist statements publicly were then asked to atone and to learn. and there was no sense of the extent to which racism is so deeply embedded in the structures and institutions of this society. and i think now ththere is a popular understandingg of the fact that you can't just assume that by finding jason van dyke guilty of the murder of laquan mcdonald that thahat's going to anange the sitituation. the icago polilice departmtt wiwill continue to be as racist

as it was before. and so this notion of abolition has really really taken hold. and i don't envyvy young activis and organizers. because they have to deal with so much more. things were so much simpler for us. and that's because we had no idea how complicated these issues really are.e. i often point out the fact is that when we began -- that when we began, we were calling for black freedom. that was always freedom fofor the black man.n. and women were doing most of the organizing and the women who were doing the organizing didn't even realize that we were excludiding ourselves through our very vocabulary from t the terrain of freedom,

and that's nono longer the case. [applause] angela: the role of gender and sexuality i think, queer approaches are becoming more mainstream in terms of organizing queer feminist approaches. and that's exciting. yeah. so even though i know the world always appears to be so chaotic and sometimes we can't see a way out. but i think the work that we have to do is to guarantee that we passed down the legacy to the next group to the next generation.. and that's our onlyly hope for achieveving chan.

and i see the work that young activists are doing today and the way in which they are also -- because you are not young that long. many people are under the impression that youth is an eternal. it doesn't happen that way. before you know it, you will have aged out of youth. and so, so it's so important to train others to share and with each generation, it becomes richer and more interesting and more complicated. i am sometimes amazed listening to young activists who speak k so fluentltly aboute ways in which homophobia, transphobia not only affect

those who identify as trans or as lgbtq. it's about the entire w world. the challenging of the gender binary has allowed us to recognize that everything can be challenged. if you can challenge what was considered to be the most basic guarantor of normalcy, right, then you can challenge anything. you can challenge capitalism. you can see your wayay to a fufe beyond the kind of obscene capitalist framework that has formed and shaped our lives.

so i'm excited. those of you who are young may not feel this, but things look a lot more hopeful to me. it's the e young peoplele who represent t the fututure. and so they are the ones who have to take the leadership. they are the ones who have to lead us into the next phase. and i guess as i get older i realize how important it is for us to imagine ourselves as something more than our own individual lives. that w we are connected with people who came before us. and we will be connected to people who come after us. so it's our responsibility to do the work that will --

and the responsibility of younger people, toooo. to make sure that you do the work that will keep the ideas alive, that will keep the possibility of freedom alive. because it's not going to happen tomorrow. we know that. but it can happen. it can happen sometime in the future. well -- i don't think we will ever actually reach that point that we can call freedom. because what's exciting is that on the road, we notice that things are so much more complicated. you know? and so i'm excited about what you will discover in the future. no one couldld have prededicted 20 years ago that trans movements would be so important

to social justice today. no one could have predicteted that. [applalause] angela: and so i see us expanding the terrain of freedom. and i'm imagining that in the future we will have movements to protect animals that will become much more widespread. we'll have a different relation. we will experience our relationship to those with whom we share the planet in very different ways. and d then thehere are all of te frfreedom ideas that i can't even imagine. but i know that -- in the future, they will emerge. so i'm exexcited. it's not that bad to be old.

it isn't. as long as you maintain ththat kind of perspective and vision that allows you to feel connected to both those who are younger and those who are older, those who came before us and ththoswho will comome after us many generations into the future. amy: the legendary activistt and scholar dr. angela davis,, professor emerita at the university of california santa cruz. i spoke with her in october. for transcript of the interview, go to democracynow.org. that does it for now. special thanks to becca staley, julie crosby, ariel boone and coral mark sure.

and to our camera crews. i'm amy goodman. this is democracy now! happy holidays. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. email your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to: democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, ny 10013. [captioning made possible by