Angela Davis Celebrates Sixty-Ninth Birthday: 11 Memorable Quotes From An American Icon

On this day, 69 years ago, the activist, scholar, and revolutionary Angela Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama.

Davis has spent much of her life fighting for and defending forgotten or marginalized groups in America and abroad. Known for her political activism during the turbulent 1960's, she became a household name when on August 18, 1970 J. Edgar Hoover made her the third woman ever placed on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List.

After a nationwide manhunt, Davis was arrested on October 13, 1970 for her alleged connection to the kidnappings and murders that occurred during Jonathan Jackson's attempt to free the imprisoned Soledad Brothers. Davis had purchased the guns used by Jackson. Upon her arrest, then President Richard M. Nixon congratulated the FBI for capturing Davis, describing her as a "dangerous terrorist."

Her subsequent trial was covered widely across the world. Stars such as John Lennon and Yoko Ono (with their song Angela) and The Rolling Stones (with their song Sweet Black Angel) showed their support for Davis. On June 4, 1972, after 13 hours of deliberation, an all-white jury acquitted Davis of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges. Davis was 28-years-old at the time.

From her radical work during the 1960's, through her trial and subsequent acquittal, to her work as an educator (Davis has served as a professor and department head at the University of California at Santa Cruz and as visiting scholar at other colleges and universities) Davis' name holds a secure space among the ranks of legendary Americans.

As she celebrates her 69th birthday, let's take a look back at some of her most memorable quotes.

• "Art on the Frontline," Women, Culture, and Politics (written 1984).

  "The work of the political activist inevitably involves a certain tension between the requirement that position be taken on current issues as they arise and the desire that one's contributions will somehow survive the ravages of time."

• Address, June 25, 1987, Spellman College. Let Us All Rise Together, Women, Culture and Politics (1989).

  "Radical simply means 'grasping things at the root.'" --- NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 15: Activist Angela Davis attends Black Girls Rock! 2011 at the Paradise Theater on October 15, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by John W. Ferguson/Getty Images)

• Women, Culture and Politics, introduction (1989).

  "The work of the political activist inevitably involves a certain tension between the requirement that positions be taken on curren t issues as they arise and the desire that one's contributions will somehow survive the ravages of time."

• "Art on the Frontline," Women, Culture, and Politics (written 1984)

  "Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation." --- TORONTO, ON - SEPTEMBER 09: Director Shola Lynch, producer Will Smith, Angela Davis and actor Jada Pinkett Smith attend the 'Free Angela & All Political Prisoners' premiere during the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival at Roy Thomson Hall on September 9, 2012 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)

• June 4, 1972 After Being Acquitted On Murder, Kidnapping and Conspiracy Charges

  "A fair trial would have been no trial at all."

• Address, November 15, 1987. "Facing Our Common Foe,"

  "Media mystifications should not obfuscate a simple, perceivable fact; Black teenage girls do not create poverty by having babies. Quite the contrary, they have babies at such a young age precisely because they are poor--because they do not have the opportunity to acquire an education, because meaningful, well-paying jobs and creative forms of recreation are not accessible to them ... because safe, effective forms of contraception are not available to them." ---- TORONTO, ON - SEPTEMBER 09: Willow Smith and Angela Davis attend the 'Free Angela & All Political Prisoners' premiere during the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival at Roy Thomson Hall on September 9, 2012 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)

• Chapter 13 Women, Race and Class, Angela Davis 1981

  "One of the most closely guarded secrets of advanced capitalist societies involves the possibility ? the real possibility ? of radically transforming the nature of housework." Description 1 Angela Davis speaking at an event sponsored by the Left Labor Project (LLP). Location: 1199SEIU Martin Luther King, Jr. ...

• Are Prisons Obsolete, 2003

  "Because it would be too agonizing to cope with the possibility that anyone, including our? selves, could become a prisoner, we tend to think of the prison as disconnected from our own lives. This is even true for some of us, women as well as men, who have already experienced imprisonment."

• Are Prisons Obsolete 2003

  "The prison is not the only institution that has posed complex challenges to the people who have lived with it and have become so inured to its presence that they could not con?ceive of society without it. Within the history of the United States the system of slavery immediately comes to mind."

• Lessons: From Attica to Soledad (1971)

  "Yet human beings cannot be willed and molded into nonexistence."

• Lessons: From Attica to Soledad (1971)

  "Scores of men are dead; and unknown numbers are wounded. By now, it would seem, more people should realize that such explosive acts of repression are not minor aberrations in a society not terribly disturbing in other aspects."

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/26/angela-davis-birthday_n_2557842.html

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