Former Black Panther Party member Angela Y. Davis, 58, seared herself into the American consciousness more than 30 years ago with her fiery rhetoric, withering social critiques and unrelenting activism. Today, her work inspires a new generation of grass-roots leaders, none more so than Nicole Burrowes, 28, community organizing and research associate at LISTEN Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based organization that fosters leadership skills among urban youth. Recently, the two women discussed how best to effect change.
Davis: Organizing for radical change is challenging today. Young activists have to negotiate a complex of issues that were not familiar to those of us who became active [in the '60s]. The most important thing is to figure out how to develop radical approaches, how to think beyond the present, how to imagine a very different kind of future and how to fight for it.
Burrowes: Right, and that comes a lot of ways. That could come through creative means, using culture — for example, utilizing hip-hop culture or any culture that connects people.
Davis: I totally agree. If you compare the way activism was conceptualized 30 years ago, artists were seen as people who could support the "real" activists. Now, young people see politics as happening precisely through culture and that artists have as important a role to play as those who attend meetings at 1 o'clock in the morning. There is a tendency in black communities to think of the old civil rights movement as the only way, and sometimes to be reluctant to open up to new ideas, to consider, for example, that the future of progressive black organizing is very much linked to the future of organizing around broader issues — issues affecting women, issues affecting other communities of color, issues affecting immigrants, issues affecting the entire globe. There is a much more pervasive consciousness of global responsibility today. Yes, we had the anti-apartheid movement before; yes, we worked against the war in Vietnam in the '70s; of course, we supported the Sandinista movement; we supported the Cuban revolution. But I think now it's obvious that we cannot do local work or even national work without linking that work to what is happening around the world. You had two major conferences in the last 10 years. You had the conference in 1995 in Beijing around women [U.N. World Conference on Women], and you have the conference that took place this last summer in South Africa, the World Conference Against Racism.
Burrowes: I've seen the need for progressive young people of color to come together increase dramatically. We definitely have to build coalitions across race, across status. Part of what's made it easier has been the Internet and the fact that we have been able to talk in milliseconds across borders. I think, too, that although the World Conference Against Racism, even though it was marginalized in a lot of ways [following] Sept. 11, it still was very important, because we saw people's struggle up close and personal. We have to begin reframing how we think about all of this stuff in general. The other thing, too, is around the world trade movement, a lot of the voices tended to be white voices. Voices of color that are very clear about who is [suffering], whether it be in communities in Brooklyn or in Guatemala, need to be at the forefront of that movement.
Davis: And the anti-sweatshop movement is so important to our work today. The context really is global capitalism. The production of designer clothes that we wear in Asia and other countries [reaps] enormous profits for these companies. And when one considers that the market for these products sometimes [compels] kids in poor neighborhoods to go out and commit crimes in order to wear the latest Nike shoes and that these people end up behind bars and that prisons are part of an increasingly global industrial complex that is making punishment profitable, we begin to see that all these things are very much connected.
Burrowes: A lot of the work that I've been engaged in is seen as fundamentally un-American and not often even supported, especially now. And I think, too, just looking for people who stay true to their politics, who have remained committed in this movement ... It's hard to find sometimes.
Davis: Well, first of all, I think people assume racism has been completely wiped out. People are unwilling to recognize the structural effect of racism, the fact that there are more than 1 million people behind bars, and [65%] or so of them are people of color. And those are the kind of issues that young activists are taking on and are trying to interpret. Now the fact that it was so easy for the anti-Arab and Muslim racism to emerge in the aftermath of Sept. 11 ought to let us know that we still have a lot of work.
Burrowes: And the fact that so many people are OK with it, too. There are so many people who are supporting it who you would think wouldn't, or who feel that just because we are in this time it's OK.
Davis: Even black people.
Burrowes: Right. ... [Another thing is] we have to gain from each other's strategies to deal with things that happen locally, like the issue of violence against women, for example. The reality is that young women face violence much more than people think and oftentimes don't have a place to even talk about it, much less do something about it.
Davis: We've learned to acknowledge things that happened behind closed doors for so long. [Years ago] people were able to be leaders in the campaign against police violence or military violence while perpetuating the same kind of violence on their partners at home. Now we're beginning to understand the connection between the violence that happens in intimate relationships and the violence that happens in the prisons and the violence that happens in a colonial context against indigenous people. That's what's so exciting about this period. Even though there are people my age who express dismay that the youth aren't out in the streets doing what '60s activists did, that's not necessarily true. Organizations like Sista II Sista, which, of course, you co-founded, are doing really amazing work on the community level; working with teenage girls and making those connections between the violence and harassment they experience at school, at home, on the streets and the police violence that continues to be implicit. And most of the organizers are teenage girls. Prison issues are also issues about gender, about women. We encourage everyone who is involved in the prison movement to learn how to think about gender and recognize that women constitute the fastest-growing sector of the prison population. It doesn't make sense to criticize people in an unproductive way.
Burrowes: Or to play the "Who's the more oppressed?" game.
Davis: Or, "Who's the most radical?"
Burrowes: It's not how you move forward.
Davis: Many older people, who can say they were very involved in earlier civil rights/anti-racist movements, assume that that's the only way it can ever be done. They don't recognize that there comes a time when it is even more important for older people to listen to and take leadership from younger people than it is for younger people to listen to and take leadership from older people.
