tonight angela j. davis -- just to be really clear, this is angela j. davis for anyone who is confused, okay? [laughter] she's going to be talking, she's the editor of "policing the black man: arrests, prosecution and imprisonment," which she will be discussing this evening. she is, throughout her career as a lawyer, author and professor, angela j. davis has dedicated her efforts to studying and bettering the criminal justice system in america, particularly as it relates to prosecutional power and racism within the system. tonight's program is being broadcast for c-span, so this will probably show up in about a week. but that does mean that if you have a question, you should go to the microphone to ask it. and i forgot to say that, so now i'm going to go back to her bio, but i wanted to make sure that i got that in. she, angela davis is, she was a d.c. public defender and was the executive director of the national rainbow coalition. she's the author of "arbitrary justice: the power of the american prosecutor," which won the pauline moore award. currently

please join me in welcoming angela j. davis to the atlanta history center. [applause] >> thank you. i want to thank the atlanta history center for having me this evening. i want to thank all of you for coming out. it is great to see so many familiar faces. i see people that i know and people i do not know. i'm happy to see everyone. so grateful that so many of you want to hear about this issue and talk about this issue. so thank you for being here. i want to start off by just talking a little bit about how this book came about. i was approached about 2 and a half years ago about of essays that would explore and contextualize the many awful killings of unarmed black men and boys. that has occurred in recent years. when i was approached and asked, i seized the opportunity. because there is no issue more important to me than the unfair treatment of black and brown people in the criminal justice system in america today. in fact, it is the issue that keeps me up at night. i thought about who i would ask to join me in this project.i decided to reach out to authors, lawyers, scholars, advo