Angela Davis Quotes

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.
Angela Davis

Country, Needs, Unemployed

Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo - obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other.
Angela Davis

Human, Dangerous, Break

I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement.
Angela Davis

Work, Yourself, Single

As a black woman, my politics and political affiliation are bound up with and flow from participation in my people's struggle for liberation, and with the fight of oppressed people all over the world against American imperialism.
Angela Davis

Politics, Struggle, Fight

Racism, in the first place, is a weapon used by the wealthy to increase the profits they bring in by paying Black workers less for their work.
Angela Davis

Work, Black, Racism

We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.
Angela Davis

Society, Talk, Minds

I decided to teach because I think that any person who studies philosophy has to be involved actively.
Angela Davis

Person, Philosophy, Teach

Radical simply means 'grasping things at the root.'
Angela Davis

Means, Simply, Radical

Racism is a much more clandestine, much more hidden kind of phenomenon, but at the same time it's perhaps far more terrible than it's ever been.
Angela Davis

Time, Racism, Same

To understand how any society functions you must understand the relationship between the men and the women.
Angela Davis

Women, Men, Society

And I guess what I would say is that we can't think narrowly about movements for black liberation and we can't necessarily see this class division as simply a product or a certain strategy that black movements have developed for liberation.
Angela Davis

Black, Simply, Class

Had it not been for slavery, the death penalty would have likely been abolished in America. Slavery became a haven for the death penalty.
Angela Davis

Death, America, Slavery

Well for one, the 13th amendment to the constitution of the US which abolished slavery - did not abolish slavery for those convicted of a crime.
Angela Davis

Crime, Slavery, Amendment

I think that has to do with my awareness that in a sense we all have a certain measure of responsibility to those who have made it possible for us to take advantage of the opportunities.
Angela Davis

Made, Sense, Possible

Poor people, people of color - especially are much more likely to be found in prison than in institutions of higher education.
Angela Davis

Education, Poor, Found

We know the road to freedom has always been stalked by death.
Angela Davis

Freedom, Death, Road

I'm involved in the work around prison rights in general.
Angela Davis

Work, Around, Rights

But at the same time you can't assume that making a difference 20 years ago is going to allow you to sort of live on the laurels of those victories for the rest of your life.
Angela Davis

Life, Time, Live

I'm suggesting that we abolish the social function of prisons.
Angela Davis

Social, Function, Prisons

In a sense the quest for the emancipation of black people in the U.S. has always been a quest for economic liberation which means to a certain extent that the rise of black middle class would be inevitable.
Angela Davis

Black, Sense, Means

Now, if we look at the way in which the labor movement itself has evolved over the last couple of decades, we see increasing numbers of black people who are in the leadership of the labor movement and this is true today.
Angela Davis

Leadership, Today, True

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.
Angela Davis

Work, Time, Political

Well of course there's been a great deal of progress over the last 40 years. We don't have laws that segregate black people within the society any longer.
Angela Davis

Great, Society, Black

Well, we see an increasingly weaker labor movement as a result of the overall assault on the labor movement and as a result of the globalization of capital.
Angela Davis

Result, Labor, Movement

You can never stop and as older people, we have to learn how to take leadership from the youth and I guess I would say that this is what I'm attempting to do right now.
Angela Davis

Leadership, Learn, Youth

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Biography

Nationality: American

Born: January 26, 1944

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