Power to the People
Maybe it was the threat of bad weather, but black leather jackets were out in full force at Angela Davis's appearance in Watts on Sunday for Black History Month.
Maybe not. The thousand-plus crowd that filled the Phoenix Room at WLCAC on Central Avenue was full of Davis enthusiasts of all ages who have long revered the professor/activist as the rock star--or maybe it's more appropriate to say r & b diva--of the black freedom struggle of the '60s and early '70s. Though overwhelmingly black, the audience also featured Latinos, whites, Asians, gays, lesbians and very young children, none of whom were deterred by the mythically rough environs of Watts itself. In fact, Watts was a perfect setting for what many people were hoping would be a Sunday revival of the '60s spirit of protest and rebellion, a spirit that literally caught fire in this neighborhood on a hot summer night 45 years ago. Nobody wanted to burn anything down Sunday, but they clearly wanted to burn--with renewed passion for justice, with indignation at the political status quo that's pretty much stifled anything resembling social justice since about 1976. It's a status quo that Obama, the latest addition to Black History Month, has not measurably affected. Not yet. Not that the more senior activists at Sunday's gathering were surprised.
This being L.A., let's get to the important point: Davis has aged well. She still has her trademark big hair, though not quite the iconic afro, and it's gray now instead of the fierce black that resembled a rain cloud and inspired others to sport rain clouds of their own . But she still has a youthful voice that's more musical instead of strident, and she is given to grinning with a kind of delight when she makes serious points. That doesn't mean Davis has lost the mettle that has made her such a heroine to so many. But she has acquired a certain serenity to go along with it. In the same pleasant tone she used to introduce herself, she blasted the cancer of incarceration, especially in California, and the fact that despite the facts that blacks "won" the Civil War, they never experienced a black Reconstruction that might have made the freedom from slavery mean something. After the war it took a hundred years for the reconstruction question to be raised again in earnest. And let's just say that the matter still isn't settled.
Naturally, the Davis faithful asked her what could be done in these times to rouse people of all colors out of their consumerist, focus-group, post-Obama election stupor and get involved with (real) change. One woman wanted to know how folks could be more like Davis herself. Davis replied that change is never accomplished by one person, but by a community of people; knowing that, she said, is what has always kept her from apathy, or even worse, despair. Not exactly a revival-tent meeting, but a sermon worth taking home.
This image was taken by flickr user yoyolabellut. It was used under the Creative Commons License.
