The University Program Council invites the public to take part in the next installment of the University of North Dakota’s “Great Conversation” series featuring Civil Rights Movement activist Angela Davis. The event provides UND students, faculty, staff and the Greater Grand Forks Community the opportunity to see, hear and interact with live history.

The event will take place at 7p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 6, at the Chester Fritz auditorium. A reception and book signing will follow at the Gorecki Alumni Center at 8:15 p.m.

This is a rare chance for the public to interact with someone who was involved in the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Panther Party, Communist Party and other areas of social activism.

Background

Born on Jan. 26, 1944, in Birmingham, Ala., Angela Davis is best known as a radical African American educator and activist for civil rights and other social issues. As early as 1969, Davis began publicly speaking, voicing her opposition to the Vietnam War, racism, sexism, the prison industrial complex, the death penalty and her support of gay rights.

As a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego, she joined the Black Panthers, but spent most of her time working with the Che-Lumumba Club, which was an all-black branch of the Communist Party.

In 1970, Davis purchased the firearms used in an attack that killed a judge, juror, prosecutor and three prison inmates that attempted to escape after holding a courtroom hostage. Because of California State Law, Davis was charged with “aggravated kidnapping and first degree murder in the death of Judge Harold Haley” and a warrant for her arrest was issued. Four days after the initial warrant was issued, the FBI director J. Edgar Hoover made Angela Davis the third woman to appear on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List.

Soon after, Davis became a fugitive and fled California. Upon catching her, President Richard M. Nixon congratulated the FBI on its “capture of the dangerous terrorist, Angela Davis". After spending 18 months behind bars, Davis was acquitted of all charges.

Angela Davis also ran for Vice-President along with the veteran party leader of the Communist Party, Gus Hall. However, several years later she separated from the Communist Party, leaving it to help found the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism

Davis has continued a career of activism, and a principal focus of her current activism is the state of prisons within the United States. Considering herself anabolitionist, not a "prison reformer," Davis was one of the primary founders of Critical Resistance, a national grassroots organization dedicated to building a movement to abolish the prison system.

In 1997, she declared herself to be a lesbian in Out magazine and is now an activist for GLBTQ rights.

Today she is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she teaches courses on the history of consciousness. Davis is the author of several books, including Women, Race, and Class (1980) and Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003).

About UPC

The University Program Council (UPC) is a division of Student Government whose objective is to educate, entertain and challenge UND students through entertainments as well as cultural and educational programming. In an effort to achieve this goal, the UPC presents to the campus community a variety of events including, but not limited to: music events, performing arts, speakers, Union and special events, cinema events, and diversity events. All funds received and used by the UPC are from student fees.