watching autumn leaves fall.

I went to see Angela Davis speak at Reed College almost a month ago. She was really amazing. I left having learned some new things and feeling refreshed, excited, and hopeful. I wanted to write some of my notes from the lectures, so I don't lose them and forget...

Ms. Davis spoke about how Americans tend to credit a singular, grand hero with starting a movement or making a change. She said that this is a misgiving, and that it's ordinary and forgotten people who are really the heroes who make change. It takes many, many people to make change. It's not just one person.

MLK wasn't the only person working towards the Civil Rights movements; he is one of the most remembered. (Ms. Davis says they called it the Freedom Movement back then, and that she much prefers this term.) There were many black women who worked on the Freedom Movement, and largely no one knows who they were. She mentioned Ella Baker, Joanne Robinson, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Shirley Chisholm among others. She quoted Shirley Chisholm as saying that it is, "ordinary people who raise to extraordinary heights".

Joanne Robinson wrote a book titled, "The Montgomery Boycott and the Women who started it." I want to read this book. That's right, she said, it was women who started the Montgomery Boycott.

She cautioned us against relying and depending on and expecting so much from Obama, as a hero and leader, and told us that we as individual and as groups of individuals need to step up to the plate and create change and live change in our communities.

She says that we are still undoing the damaging effects of colonization and slavery. She said Mr. Obama made a really good speech on race that I need to remember to look up.

While yes it is very exciting that Obama is the first black president of the US. It's not all about him being black. It wouldn't be as exciting if he were someone like Clarence Thomas i.e. a black person with conservative values, what's even more exciting about Obama is that he comes from liberal and radical roots.

She went on to speak about prision politics, which is something I didn't know too much about... She said Oregon is 2% black. 2%! WTF!

I don't remember the exact percentage, but Oregon's prisions are OVERWHELMING filled with people of color.

The US has the largest prision system IN THE WORLD.

1 in 100 people are behind bars.

1 in 9 black men is in prison. 1 in fucking 9 .

The US spends more money on prisions than education.

Prisions are civil death, the opposite of democracy. All the "regects" of society, poor people, people of color, un-educated, and illiterate people, etc... are shoveled into jail.

She also spoke about how exciting election night was, and that people all over the world were celebrating like they never have before. She says our culture tends to be so cynical, and many of us have forgotten that joy already. She urged us to try to hold onto that hope, excitement and joy. Because while these times are dire, they are also fucking exciting.

Those are all the notes I wrote. They might be mis-paraphrazed but that's ok, you get the jist of it.... I really enjoyed hearing her speak. I want to follow up on the leads that she gave us. If I had more time I would look into tapping the resources at the colleges more often.

xo