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- It was exciting
acquiring this collection.
I mean, this is Angela Davis.
This-- the Angela Davis.
Acquiring Angela
Davis' papers it's
just absolutely remarkable.
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It's evidence of a life
of struggle well-lived.
It's evidence that we
can overcome obstacles.
And it's just kind of brings a
sense of hope for the future.
So to be a curator of race and
ethnicity at the Schlesinger
is essentially just
making sure that as we
talk about the
women's experience
in America, that we have the
most diverse perspectives as
possible.
So we're reaching out to as many
different ethnicities and class
groups, racial
groups to make sure
that when we say
women in America,
as many voices and faces as
we can have are represented.
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- This acquisition
is so important to us
on so many levels.
I think the most obvious
is the biographical.
She's a figure in 20th
century American thought
and political
history, the history
of organizing that people
want to know about,
and that people want to know
about from the inside out.
We're very lucky that
Angela Davis kept the kinds
of meticulous records she did.
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If I think 10 years
into the future,
I expect to be looking at
a shelf full of books that
has come out of this
collection that changes
our understanding of 20th
century American politics,
of the history and
directions of feminism
and the fights within it,
of black power, which--
whose history is
now beginning to be
told in ways that incorporate
central female figures,
but has been a mostly
male dominated history
from the '70s to its
early chroniclers,
to the burgeoning history
of mass incarceration
and the pushback against it.
- I'm so excited that Angela
Davis' collection is here
at the Schlesinger, and the fact
that her papers will be around
forever, and that
story will not be lost.
It's priceless.
It's priceless.
