And of course, in my own case,
where I was represented by the FBI
as being armed and dangerous.
The FBI has put
black militant Angela Davis
on its list of the
Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.
Then with Angela Davis,
the power of the black intellect...
One of the things that we
really have to talk about,
coming to grips with,
is this whole question of crime.
What does it mean
to be a criminal in this society?
That had to be broken up.
And in my case, Ronald Reagan
was the governor of California,
Richard Nixon was
the president of the US.
The whole apparatus of the state
was set up against me,
and they really meant to send me
to the death chamber
in order to make a point.
The actions of the FBI
in apprehending Angela Davis,
a rather remarkable, uh, story again–
The system tried
to put the sister on trial,
and the sister said,
"No, we puttin' you on trial."
[indistinct chatter]
Comes in, the big Afro,
she didn't go press her hair.
She was facing major time.
You know, most people,
they'd have got a nice little press.
You know what I mean? They'd have
been in there with little white gloves on,
praying to Jesus.
She came in like this.
And she devastated the prosecution
and walked out of there free.
[crowd applauds]
But the question is
how do you get there?
Do you get there
by confrontation, violence?
Oh, was that the
question you were asking?
Yeah.
So, I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama.
Uh...
Uh, after the four young girls who were...
who lived very...
who lived...
One of them lived next door to me.
I was very good friends
with the sister of another one.
My sister was very good friends
with all three of them.
My mother taught one of them
in her class. And they went down.
And what did they find? They found limbs
and heads just strewn all over the place.
I remember,
from the time I was very small,
I remember the sounds of bombs
exploding across the street.
Our house shaking.
I remember my father having to have
guns at his disposal at all times
because of the fact that at any moment
we might expect to be attacked.
I mean, that's why, when someone
asks me about violence, uh...
I just, uh...
I just find it incredible.
Because what it means is that
the person who's asking that question
has absolutely no idea
what black people have gone through,
what black people have
experienced in this country since,
the time the first black person was
kidnapped from the shores of Africa.
