Ms Davis: A Graphic Biography

DAVIS

DAVIS

in a few months, the dissent created by infiltrated informants led to BBP’s definitive end.

December 4, 1969. Chicago. A raid by the police and FBi leads to the death of Fred Hampton, the young, charismatic leader of the BPP who disturbed the FBi with his eloquence, intelligence and the alliances he had begun to build.

Obviously, you’re just trying to get ahead of the men. Because of you, the enemy’s gonna say that the Black man is weak!

We don’t want a matriarchy!

Sullivan’s COiNTELPRO also incited a wave of violence against the BPP and rival groups lik e the Black stone Rangers* or the United Slaves**.

The Senate’s Church Committee was formed to investigate the abuses of COiNTELPRO, which had violated the first amendment of the Constitution.

The informants put guns in everyone’s hands, so that the disputes ended in a bloodbath.

founded in the ’50s. Link ed to the Nation

islam and had all the characteristics of a gang.

1965 by

Jamal, Malcolm

’s cousin.

Anyhow, your fancy liberation theory is worthless because it’s Marxist. We won’t accept SNCC!!

The committee considered the program state terrorism.

Fortunately, J. Edgar Hoover died in 1972.

Get me Sullivan.

Sullivan was due to testify before the Church Committee, but he died in a foolish hunting accident. The shooter mistook him for a deer.

Ah yes, the famous blaze-orange deer.

There are still thousands of declassified pages from COiNTELPRO to study…

Although COINTELPRO ended with Sullivan, it opened the public’s eyes to how these methods continue to inspire similar actions today around the world . . .

ANGELA DAVIS

Miss Davis’ response to administrators, in which she did not hesitate to affirm her membership in the Communist Party, was not well-received. Administrators threatened to expel her, but Miss Davis confirmed that she expects to continue to teach philosophy and that this matter would be settled by the courts. A campaign to support her has been organized by the Che Lumumba Club, by the Black professors at UCLA and numerous students.

Meanwhile, anti-Communists, as well as all those not particularly pleased with the prog ress made in civil rights in recent years, have raged across the country. Miss Davis receives truckloads of threatening letters every day. The professor is always accompanied by a bodyguard. Police forces have increased their presence on campus and verify that her car is not rigged with explosives.

As usual, Miss Davis gives rise to strong emo tions and, deep down, we know that all this does not please Mr. Reagan or Mr. Hoover.

ANGELA DAVIS, COMMUNIST PROFESSOR AT UCLA

George Jackson had been imprisoned at 18 because he had been in the car with an acquaintance who had stolen 70 dollars. He was sentenced to one year to life in prison, and the word “life” is the operative word, because he was never released.

As Malcolm X had done, Jackson poured himself into reading and writing. He wrote a number of political essays that led him to found the “Black Guerilla Family,” which joined with the BPP in 1970, as suggested by Huey Newton.

His status as a prisoner incarcerated for burglary was gradually transformed into that of a political prisoner, as the prison administration had no desire to release a known activist.

in January 1970, a fight broke out during “recreation.” Prison guard O.G. Miller, a notorious racist, had shot and killed three Black inmates. A jury acquitted him and called his actions “justifiable homicide.”

Since then, not a day passed without the rumblings of revolt in Soledad Prison. During a confrontation between prisoners and their jailers, a guard was thrown over a railing.

Before his body hit the ground, John Cluchette, Fleeta Drumgo and George Jackson were accused of the murder. They were transferred to San Quentin Prison and put in solitary confinement to await their executions.

That’s when the Che Lumumba Club was contacted to attend a meeting to organize a campaign to free the three prisoners.

That night, Angela listened attentively, and with growing passion, to the words of Jackson’s family and their lawyer, Fay Stender.

At Soledad, the guards themselves enacted segregation long ago. Everyone is grouped by ethnicity, which means the prisoners can’t support each other. Much to the contrary…

There’s even a group of Klansmen, called the Aryan Brotherhood!

That’s why they fought in the yard. They were deliberately put together. The guards knew what would happen…

Exactly. in any case, it’s unbearable in that prison. it’s going to get worse in there.

George has been in prison for 10 years now. I don’t want him to die in there.

We need help to get our boys out of there. People need to know the truth.

You all know how to get people to work together… So, they can be free of this conspiracy!

That’s how Angela decided to throw herself headlong into the fight to free those three inmates, resolved to make people listen to their cause, and hers, on university campuses.

She becomes the director of the Soledad Brothers Defense Committee, organizing weekly meetings in Kendra and Franklin’s apartment, which became HQ, on 50th Street.

I’ll take advantage of the curiosity of folks who want to see a real, admitted Communist in the flesh!

FAY STENDER

GEORGIA JACKSON

DRUMGO’S MOTHER

Angela’s nights were spent writing her philosophy dissertation, because her days were spent on committee work.

She became closer with George Jackson’s family and met his younger brother Jonathan.

He was 17 and could no longer remember a time when George was free.

His brother’s name was always on his lips.

Jonathan spends most of his time writing to George, sometimes also writing opinion columns for his high school newspaper calling to free the Soledad Brothers.

Angela also spends countless hours writing to George.

George inspires Angela and Angela inspires George.

it’s a long-distance conversation. There are no embraces, but hearts are aflame, burning even brighter because of the distance.

George is worried. He’s afraid for Angela’s safety.

UCLA administrators fire her from the university, under the pretext that her public speeches are improper for a professor.

Angela vows that she’ll fight until the bitter end, that she’ll never shut her mouth.

So George is afraid and asks Jonathan to protect her.

I love what you’re writing--it’s brilliant! it would be great if you wrote flyers for the committee.

Thanks. I’ll do whatever I can to help George!