January 26: Angela Davis, Activist

Civil Rights Activist
b. January 26, 1944

Revolution is a serious thing, the most serious thing about a revolutionary's life. When one commits oneself to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime.

A revolutionary of unequivocal prowess, Angela Davis has devoted her life to combating racism and sexism. Despite acrimonious attempts by the U.S. government to suppress her political influence, Davis has never wavered in her commitment towards global social justice.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1944, Davis grew up under the oppression of Jim Crow laws. Her family lived in an integrated neighborhood plagued by racial conflict. Bombings by the Ku Klux Klan were so common that the neighborhood was called "Dynamite Hill." From an early age, Davis encountered political activism. Her mother was a civil rights campaigner and a member of the NAACP.

Davis was a precocious child who possessed an acute awareness of her social status as an African-American woman. By the age of fourteen, she had aligned herself with socialist and communist politics, joining the communist youth organization, Advance.

In 1962, Davis landed a full scholarship to Brandeis University, where she studied French and philosophy. In 1969, after receiving her master's degree from the University of California, San Diego and Ph.D. in Philosophy from Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, Davis began teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles. UCLA terminated her position based on her involvement in the Communist Party USA. The university eventually reinstated her professorship following enormous pressure from national and international supporters.

In 1970, Davis was charged with conspiracy, kidnapping, and homicide after a shotgun registered in her name was used in a courthouse hostage shooting linked to the Black Panther Party. Fearing for her life, Davis went underground, becoming the third woman on the FBI's Most Wanted List. The Bureau eventually captured her. She was brought to trial in one of the most publicized criminal hearings of the century. In 1972, an all-white jury found Davis not guilty on all charges.

Davis writes and lectures on gender and race issues and remains on the faculty at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is a co-founder of Critical Resistance, a national grass-roots organization addressing reform of the "prison-industrial complex."

Bibliography
“Articles about and by Angela Davis.” The New York Times Archives. July 3, 2007
“Interview with Angela Davis.” PBS: Frontline. July 3, 2007
Aptheker, Bettina. The Morning Breaks: The Trial of Angela Davis. Cornell University Press, 1999
James, Joy. The Angela Y. Davis Reader. Blackwell Publishing Limited. 1998
Selected Works
Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire (2005)
Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974)
Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)
Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday (1999)
Frame Up: The Opening Defense Statement Made (1972)
If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance (1971)
Violence Against Women and the Ongoing Challenge to Racism (1985)
Women, Culture and Politics (1989)
Women, Race and Class (1981)

Angela Davis

Civil Rights Activist
b. January 26, 1944

Revolution is a serious thing, the most serious thing about a revolutionary's life. When one commits oneself to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime.

A revolutionary of unequivocal prowess, Angela Davis has devoted her life to combating racism and sexism. Despite acrimonious attempts by the U.S. government to suppress her political influence, Davis has never wavered in her commitment towards global social justice.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1944, Davis grew up under the oppression of Jim Crow laws. Her family lived in an integrated neighborhood plagued by racial conflict. Bombings by the Ku Klux Klan were so common that the neighborhood was called "Dynamite Hill." From an early age, Davis encountered political activism. Her mother was a civil rights campaigner and a member of the NAACP.

Davis was a precocious child who possessed an acute awareness of her social status as an African-American woman. By the age of fourteen, she had aligned herself with socialist and communist politics, joining the communist youth organization, Advance.

In 1962, Davis landed a full scholarship to Brandeis University, where she studied French and philosophy. In 1969, after receiving her master's degree from the University of California, San Diego and Ph.D. in Philosophy from Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, Davis began teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles. UCLA terminated her position based on her involvement in the Communist Party USA. The university eventually reinstated her professorship following enormous pressure from national and international supporters.

In 1970, Davis was charged with conspiracy, kidnapping, and homicide after a shotgun registered in her name was used in a courthouse hostage shooting linked to the Black Panther Party. Fearing for her life, Davis went underground, becoming the third woman on the FBI's Most Wanted List. The Bureau eventually captured her. She was brought to trial in one of the most publicized criminal hearings of the century. In 1972, an all-white jury found Davis not guilty on all charges.

Davis writes and lectures on gender and race issues and remains on the faculty at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is a co-founder of Critical Resistance, a national grass-roots organization addressing reform of the "prison-industrial complex."

Bibliography
“Articles about and by Angela Davis.” The New York Times Archives. July 3, 2007
“Interview with Angela Davis.” PBS: Frontline. July 3, 2007
Aptheker, Bettina. The Morning Breaks: The Trial of Angela Davis. Cornell University Press, 1999
James, Joy. The Angela Y. Davis Reader. Blackwell Publishing Limited. 1998
Selected Works
Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire (2005)
Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974)
Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)
Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday (1999)
Frame Up: The Opening Defense Statement Made (1972)
If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance (1971)
Violence Against Women and the Ongoing Challenge to Racism (1985)
Women, Culture and Politics (1989)
Women, Race and Class (1981)

Canadian Trans Rights Bill C-389 Moving Towards Debate

I talked a few months ago about Canadian MP Bill Siksay filing a private member's bill May 15 that would add “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the list of protected classes in the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code of Canada.

Well, thanks to the action alert from Mercedes Allen, it looks like the legislative process is finally beginning to percolate around MP Siksay's Bill C-389 and it is about to come up for debate.

NDP Party critic on Canadian Heritage, housing and Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Transsexual issues Bill Siksay is one of the few openly gay members of the Canadian Parliament and has represented the diverse Burnaby-Douglas riding in the Vancouver, BC area since 2004.

This is also the third attempt he's made to get Bill C-389 passed.

If C-389 passes, this would be a groundbreaking legislative win for our north of the border trans cousins.

As MP Siksay stated during the first reading of Bill C-389:

The bill will add gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act and to the Criminal Code sections regarding hate crimes and sentencing provisions, providing explicit protection for transgender and transsexual Canadians from discrimination in all areas of federal jurisdiction.

Transsexual and transgender Canadians face significant prejudice in their daily lives. Whether it is job discrimination, access to housing and public services, especially health care, problems with identity documents, difficulties with law enforcement officials, a high suicide rate, or the increased likelihood that they will be victims of violence, the situation of transsexual and transgender people demands our attention.

The bill would give transsexual and transgender Canadians direct access to the protections provided for in the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code of Canada that they so urgently need.

I look forward to seeing the bill debated this fall in the next round of private members' business. Given that transgender and transsexual folks are members of our families, our friends, our co-workers, and our neighbours, I hope this measure will find support in all corners of the House.

If you live in the 'Great White North', time to get busy writing, e-mailing or calling your MP and respectfully asking them to support C-389. This is an 'all hands on deck' project that the entire Canadian TBLG community and their allies can and should enthusiastically get behind as well.

And don't stop with just the MP's. Write the party leaders as well such as the Liberals Michael Ignatieff, the NDP's Jack Layton, Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois and Elizabeth May of the Green Party.

And if you happen to be a Conservative with progressive leanings, write the 'Sweater Vest' as well. After all, he is the Prime Minister.

Mercedes also noted that since Prime Minister Stephen Harper and much of the leadership ranks hail from conservative Alberta, it will be critically important for GLBT Albertans to make sure they make their voices heard with their MP's about their support for the passage of C-389.

Here's a link to the NDP Party website to get you started. If you don't know who your MP is, here's the link to the Canadian Parliament website in which all you'll have to do is type in your postal code to discover who your MP is.

As I continue to point out, the fight for transgender rights is a worldwide struggle. Any positive success anywhere on the planet helps me and my peeps in the States and other locales. It's why I'm very interested in what transpires in Canada with Bill C-389.

While we transgender Americans and our allies will pretty much be on the sidelines in cheerleader mode for this one, in light of the fact that ENDA is still awaiting action on this side of the border, we'll be extremely interested observers as the potentially historic C-389 bill makes its way through Parliament.

We'll also be praying that the third time is indeed the charm in terms of this bill becoming law in the Great White North.