Free Angela and All Political Prisoners Page #2

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And I asked Angela

to participate in the educational

that I was conducting on Marxism

to my cadre.

That was the extent of her involvement.

I had gotten involved, very briefly,

with the Black Panther Party,

Black Student Non-Violent

Coordinating Committee,

the black student organization

on my campus,

but I did not like the nationalism,

I did not like the male supremacy,

I did not like the fact that women were

expected to take a back seat

and, literally, to sit at the feet of the men.

So it was really refreshing to meet

someone like Franklin Alexander

and Franklin's wife, Kendra.

I think, basically, what we're doing is

we're saying that this system

is rotten at its core,

while we fight for the immediate needs

of the people, constantly and continually.

Better housing, you know,

the end of police brutality.

Stopping the depression level of

unemployment in the black community.

And while we continue

to do those kinds of things,

we do know, in fact, that this

system itself creates those conditions.

The changing of those conditions

basically means establishing

a socialist society.

The Che Lumumba Club was

an open Communist Party club.

And the purpose of it was

to allow the Communist Party

to openly operate

inside the Black Power movement.

I don't know whether I would've joined

the Communist Party at that time,

had not the Che Lumumba Club existed.

You know, Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba,

sort of symbolic of the global revolution

you know, very specifically Third World

people, people of color.

And that was

what really drew me into the party.

We have to talk about being radical.

And radical means, etymologically,

you know, to get things at their root.

It's very interesting. The white people

have been called radicals for a long time.

And black people have been called

militants, you know?

As if black people can't be radicals, too.

But if we don't fight now,

we'll never be able to put into practice

that slogan

which, I think, crystallizes

what we've been talking about,

and that is all the power to the people.

I was invited to apply

for this position at UCLA.

They needed someone

who was trained in continental philosophy

and who could teach Marxism.

I decided to accept the job.

There had been an article

written by a man who had joined

the Communist Party,

but, actually, he was an FBI agent.

And then after that,

a well-known reactionary reporter

in Northern California

wrote a scathing article about me.

And that's when all hell broke loose.

Yesterday was the first day

of the fall term at UCLA,

and philosophy professor, Angela Davis,

was on her way to teach her first class

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