If They Come in the Morning.: Voices of Resistance (Radical Thinkers) by Unknown

by Angela Y. Davis

1

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, History, Race, Feminism, Social Justice, Essays

Paperback Bunko

First published December 1, 1971

About the author

Angela Yvonne Davis is an American political activist, scholar, and author. She emerged as a nationally prominent activist and radical in the 1960s, as a leader of the Communist Party USA, and had close relations with the Black Panther Party through her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement despite never being an official member of the party. Prisoner rights have been among her continuing interests; she is the founder of Critical Resistance, an organization working to abolish the prison-industrial complex. She is a retired professor with the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is the former director of the university's Feminist Studies department.

Her research interests are in feminism, African American studies, critical theory, Marxism, popular music, social consciousness, and the philosophy and history of punishment and prisons. Her membership in the Communist Party led to Ronald Reagan's request in 1969 to have her barred from teaching at any university in the State of California. She was tried and acquitted of suspected involvement in the Soledad brothers' August 1970 abduction and murder of Judge Harold Haley in Marin County, California. She was twice a candidate for Vice President on the Communist Party USA ticket during the 1980s.

Reviews

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a criminal defense attorney primarily and almost exclusively. I know personally many incarcerated people. Being a Black woman attorney in Mississippi some may say gives me a unique perspective of the inner workings of the system. What it really gives me is nightmares and sleepless nights, disappointments and anxiety, sadness and despair, and yet, fleeting moments of hope. Seriously.
I know there are people who are in prison doing major time for minor crimes; people doing time for crimes they did not commit; and those incarcerated who are casualties of wars…declared and undeclared…War on Crime, War on Poverty, War on black and brown peoples. I know these things to be true, up close and personal.
I’ve just completed reading “If They Come in the Morning…Voices of Resistance.” Angela Davis, at the time, a young college professor, wrote and compiled this book while confined in a California jail cell awaiting trial for murder and other charges. The book opens with an open letter written to Angela by James Baldwin in which he says we must support Angela’s attempts to get justice because “If they take you (Angela) in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.” It appears the book’s central focus is the liberation of what she calls political prisoners. As detailed in this book, political prisoners are those who find themselves incarcerated and charged with crimes as a result of their explicit political beliefs, such as Ms. Davis who was targeted and vilified for her revolutionary politics. Also, there are those incarcerated as a result of political policies popular and in place at a given time (war on drugs) and political strategies motivated by racism (over policing, mandatory minimums, three strike laws). These political prisoners will have multiple encounters with law enforcement many times leading to unjust treatment in the judicial system resulting in lengthy and life altering periods of incarceration. This book written in the early 70s talks about the enormous inequities we face as a nation within our carceral system. Here we are 40 years later experiencing the same atrocious practices and the consequences of same in our criminal justice system today. Could a thoughtful reading of this literature have predicted such? I suggest yes.
To say I am left somewhat hopeless for our current criminal justice system does not capture my sentiments. There has to be a word right before reaching hopeless, right before giving up and throwing in the towel, that moment right when your stomach aches from the anticipation of the excitement and resolve of giving up, your throat almost closing, your breath almost at that final exhale when you pull back and decide that I am here, I am capable, let me try this thing one more time. That is where I am, not yet hopeless but tired and convicted, exhausted but still showing up. The people in this book showed up and became the cause. Not perfect people, flawed, prone to error but yet righteous everymen for a righteous cause.
Today’s reader has the benefit of knowing Angela was indeed freed but so many others were not. So we still need to take heed. “Free Angela Davis and all political prisoners”…because we know they came for her in the morning and they continue to come for the rest of us in the night…. Power to the people.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

“…we must fight for your life as though it were our own, which it is, and render impossible with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For if they take you in the morning they will be coming for us that night.” -James Baldwin, An Open Letter to My Sister Angela Y. Davis

Angela Davis was jailed from 1970 to 1972 awaiting trial on charges for which she was eventually acquitted. In this, her first book, she presents a powerful indictment of America’s so-called “correctional custody” institutions and the racist policing of Black citizens which served to keep those institutions at maximum capacity.

This collection of essays, letters, legal arguments and written declarations, authored by the likes of Angela Davis, George Jackson, Margaret Burnham, Julian Bond, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Erica Huggins, Jessica Mitford and others, collectively exposed the bigotry and brutality of existent, police-state procedurals.

1971 - Davis, a highly respected college professor with no previous criminal history, alleged that she incurred the wrath of the Nixon/Reagan establishment simply because she was black, intellectual and communist. She was, by the strictest of legal definitions, a political prisoner. Had she been convicted on the bogus charges of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy she would have most likely received a death sentence.

“You can jail a Revolutionary, but you can't jail the Revolution.” -Huey P. Newton

The assertion here is that the prison-industrial complex, as a whole, has always served to prevent the have-nots from encroaching on the haves. As such, the framing of innocent individuals is a powerful tool. There was (and probably still is) a veritable army of wrongly accused and wrongly convicted human beings wasting away behind bars, a substantial percentage of which are Black. Had Angela Davis not been a high profile and distinguished icon of a movement she might have easily become just another statistic in a deluge of criminal and political injustices.

The testimonials are here. Read and decide for yourself.

[حسن · Rating 4 out of 5]

You might find it a cliché, but while reading the very first lines, it's Tracy Chapman's song "Talkin' About Revolution" that resonated continuously inside my head:
"Don't you know
They're talkin' bout a revolution
It sounds like a whisper.."
(Goosebumps whenever I listen to it, always)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C8d4QKI... .. Only recently I've found out that The Rolling Stones' song "Sweet Black Angel" was dedicated to her, as an act of solidarity and homage, when she was incarcerated..

Angela's studies, letters, manifestos, poems, articles in this collection titled "If They Come In The Morning" make you ponder heavy political, social and ethical issues that will always remain an actuality within the human history.. In a not so much different context to the 70s' events discussed in details, but in a radically different political system that has much evolute, the recent protests (and riots) raising after racist incidents, fuelled by the brutality with which many policemen has repeatedly tackled young "black" victims in the US of A, are a vivid example that resuscitated the past events stuck in the collective memory. They are a reminder of Humans' absurdities and foolishness, an alert that the system and its social and institutional structures still suffer from so many flaws, and therefore that the struggle for the social justice is so frought with obstacles.
Once more we witness in the present the creation of new movements (like Black Lives Matters http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/20... ).. and yesterday's poems denoting injustices written by Ericka Heggins from her cell are poignantly echoed today in Claudia Rankine's timely book-length prose poem "Citizen: An American Lyric" (review: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/201... )..
Unfortunately, despite the progressive governmental policies and institutional laws in the modern world, experiences of everyday racism run rampant and social racist events more and more recurrent.

Undoubtedly provocative and awakening, this book evokes a large spectre of themes and arouses so many emotions: the revolution, patience, injustice, frustration, fury, sacrifices, despair, one's determination in hard times, the alternatives we have and the choices to make in life, faith, the essence of heroism, disillusions, the oppression, the despair, solidarity, the societal inequities, humans' absurd actions, the freedom of speech, hope...

In reviewing this opus, i'd probably be subjective, inadvertently ignore the concrete historicity of the events, their circumstances and contexts, and I might be judgmental towards these persons engaged in a revolt during a tensioned period in the modern history of the USA.
Angela Davis is a unique woman of the modern times. An accomplished intellectual and a badass rebellion at the same time.
However, no need to introduce her further here, you will learn a lot about her in her book. Actually, I'd consider some sections of the published Epistolary kind of Auto-biographic.. Her correspondence provides elements on her Psyche, almost up close and personal. Be sure that you will hear her voice and ideas, because even her whispers are expressed loudly and proudly from behind her cell's walls..

As an exponent of marxism as a liberating ideology that should be embraced by the black people, Davis argues that the vampiric nature of capitalism is inextricable to the oppression, alienation and exploitation of the Black.
The particular question I was actually interested to comprehend is related to what were Davis' theoretical reasoning and arguments to embrace a radical revolutionary theory, instead of supporting peaceful forms of protest, as Martin Luther Kind did, and opting for gradual reforms..

As a radical political activist, Davis' ideological critiques of the capitalist and racist system were influenced by Du Bois, Fanon and other intellectuals' contributions to the Black radical politics. They are acknowledged for widening the ideas of the critical social theory, mainly associated to the contributions by the theorists of the Frankfurt school (Btw one of H. Marcuse' solidarity letters, which happened to be her former teacher in Germany, is included in the book. Her college years in Germany have had the major influence over her political ideas) reconceptualizing and rethinking it as for them, the previous theory was Eurocentric and has overlooked racism, sexism and colonialism. They endeavored to make the theory more multicultural and transethnic..

Unfortunately I was disappointed, as little to nothing of analyses related to these themes and problematics are to be found, they are beyond the scope of this book.. (this book, with a dense content, was very helpful to me; available online "Africana Critical Theory. Reconstructing the Black Radical Tradition, from W. E. B. Du Bois and C. L. R. James to Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral", by Reiland Rabaka, Lexington Books, 2009)

Actually, at that critical period of her life, Davis' main concern was to denounce the "racist machinery of the police" supported by "the juridicial system".
For Davis, "the penal system is a prominent terrain of struggle". Therefore, most of her researches focused on the socially oppressive function of the prison system, its "coercive universe" and the urgency to fight and to liberate the political prisoners unjustly incarcerated.

Davis associates the class domination, maintained and protected by the juridicial and penal system, to the superiority of the white and the subjugation and repression of the Black people in the US:
"As the black liberation movement and other progressive struggles increase in magnitude and intensity, the judicial system and its extension, the penal system, consequently become key weapons in the state's fight to preserve the existing conditions of class domination, therefore racism, poverty and war."
She adds: "there is a glaring incongruity between democracy and the capitalist economy which is the source of our ills."

According to Davis, from a class perspective, any reform is impossible without uprooting first, by force, the race-class-gender foundation upon which the unequal system was built.. In the light of the supremacy of the white, the anachronistic bourgeois structures maintain his domination over the racially subordinated black, who has consequently suffered more than the others)..


On the other hand, Davis' approach and radical stances lead us while reading to indirectly raise questions that touch many on the raw: Do resisting the authorities for a noble cause justifies the violence? What are the boundaries and limits? What would be the alternatives for the oppressed? what price are we ready to pay to remain faithful to our principles? Would anything justify the cruel acts and crimes committed to maintain the established order and prevent the chaos? Are all means, including violence, justified in a righteous struggle?
Are they heroes or apologists of violence?
To every reader his own perception, conscience and convictions to make his overall judgment.
However, it can be retained from these incidents and touching testimonies, that it is of the duty and the responsibility of each one of us to take a courageous stance and to speak out whenever we are witnesses of situations of injustice, for that by neutrality and apathy we become the silent partners of the persecutors.


I would like to share this long excerpt from the powerful, deep and poignant letter of solidarity written by "James Baldwin" to Angela.
To me, his words, impressions and ideas echo Fanon's discourse on the need to develop a positive black social identity.
It reminded me of the eloquence and wisdom in "Frantz Fanon"'s prominent studies and theories (along with Aimé Cezaire's numerous writings around the Negritude).. Fanon has consecrated his life deconstructing the traumas and effects of the oppression and the inequities inflicted by the West.. All which has subjugated the Black people (and the racial minorities).
Like Fanon, Baldwin points out in his letter the unjust laws and the racial segregation perpetuated by the institutions and the systems. He therefore fosters the Black to rise up, to rebel and to resist. But at no point, in his call for their emancipation, does he advocate for racial hatred and revenge..

"One might have hoped that, by his tour, the very sight of chains on black flesh, or the very sight of chains, would be so intolerable a sight for the American people, and so unbearable a memory, that they would themselves spontaneously rise up and strike off the manacles. But, no, they appear to glory in their chains, now, more than ever, they appear to measure their safety in chains and corpses. And so, the Newsweek (magazine), civilised defender of the indefensible, attempts to drawn you in a sea of crocodile tears and puts you on its cover, chained.
You look exceedingly alone, as alone, say, as the Jewish housewife in the boxcar headed for Dachau, or as any one of our ancestors, chained together in the name of Jesus, headed for a Christian land.
Well, since we live in an age in which silence is not only criminal but suicidal, I have been making as much noise as I can, here in Europe..

The American triumph - in which the American tragedy has always been implicit- was to make black people despise themselves.. Everything supported this sense of reality, nothing denied it: and so one was ready, when it came time to go to work, to be treated as a slave. So one was ready, when human terrors came, to bow before a white God and beg Jesus for salvation- this same white God who was unable to raise a finger to do so little as to help you pay your rent, unable to be awakened in time to help you save your child!
There is always, of course, more to any picture than can speedily be perceived and in all of this-groaning and moaning, watching, calculating, clowning, surviving, and outwitting, some tremendous strength was nevertheless being forged, which is part of our legacy today. But that particular aspect of our journey now begins to be behind us. The secret is out, we are men!

..We must do what we can do, and fortify and save each other- we are drowning in an apathetic self-contempt, we do feel ourselves sufficiently worthwhile to contend even with inexorable forces in order to change our fate and the fate of our children and the condition of the world!
We know that a man is not a thing and is not to be placed at the mercy of things. We know that the air and water belong to all mankind and not merely to industrialists.. We know that democracy does not mean the coercion of all into a deadly and wicked mediocrity but the liberty for all to aspire to the best that is in him, or that has ever been..

.. Some of us, white and black, know how great a price has already been paid to bring into existence a new consciousness, a new people, an unprecedented nation. If we know, and do nothing, we are worse than the murderers hired in our name."

All Humans are equal.. Power to the people

[Domhnall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of essays, letters, poems and notes from 1972 is a fascinating historical record from a period prior to the modern wave of mass incarceration in the USA. It is unavoidably dated in its style and many specifics have changed, but they have changed only for the worse and this writing has lost none of its topical relevance in the intervening 55 years.

The core theme is the corrupt use of the criminal justice system to incarcerate and control Black Americans. This is recognised as a flagrant updating of the system of chattel slavery whose abolition is still resented by White supremacists. Black Americans have always searched for ways to defend themselves and assert their human rights and the sources in this collection used the language of Marxism to interpret this as a revolutionary struggle rooted in class interests. In response, the US state and specifically J Edgar Hoover’s FBI employed its criminal justice system to target and silence political activists, in blatant contradiction of the constitution and the law. As a result, the country has had many thousands of political prisoners without properly acknowledging them.

Angela Davis points out that since the days of slavery and the Underground Road, resistance to Black oppression has been illegal by definition. She identifies in her first essay current categories of political prisoner that are hidden in plain view throughout the American justice system. They include Black political activists who have been criminalised or framed and Black prisoners who have learned to be politically aware and active within the prison system. More widely they include huge numbers of Black convicts who know very well they ought not to be in the prison system at all, not least because some 85% have been coerced or intimidated into pleading guilty without a trial or proper defence.

"Nat Turner [1831] and John Brown[1859] were political prisoners in their time. The acts for which they were charged and subsequently hanged, were the practical extensions of their profound commitment to the abolition of slavery." [p31] “The battle for the liquidation of slavery had no legitimate existence in the eyes of the government and therefore the special quality of deeds carried out in the interests of freedom was deliberately ignored. There were no political prisoners, there were only criminals; just as the movement out of which these deeds flowed was largely considered criminal.” [p32]

"A deep-seated ambivalence has always characterized the official response to the political prisoner. Charged and tried for a criminal act, his guilt is always political in nature. This ambivalence is perhaps best captured by Judge Webster Thayer’s comment upon sentencing Bartolo-meo Vanzetti to 15 years for an attempted payroll robbery: “This man, although he may not have actually committed the crime attributed to him, is nevertheless morally culpable, because he is the enemy of our existing institutions.” (The very same judge incidentally, sentenced Sacco and Vanzetti to death for a robbery and murder of which they were manifestly innocent.)" [p30]

”In a revealing contradiction, the court resisted the description of the New York Panther 21 trial as ‘political,’ yet the prosecutor entered as evidence of criminal intent, literature which represented, so he purported, the political ideology of the Black Panther Party." [p33]

According to Louis S. Nelson, warden of San Quentin Prison, “… if the prisons of California become known as ‘schools for violent revolution,’ the Adult Authority would be remiss in their duty not to keep the inmates longer” (S.F. Chronicle, May 2, 1971)." [p40]

”The vicious circle linking poverty, police, courts and prison is an integral element of ghetto existence. Unlike the mass of whites, the path which leads to jails and prisons is deeply rooted in the imposed patterns of Black existence. For this very reason, an almost instinctive affinity binds the mass of Black people to the political prisoners.” [p42] “The vast majority of Blacks harbour a deep hatred of the police and are not deluded by official proclamations of justice through the courts.” [p42]

The material in this book is sometimes aggressive and angry but often it is miserably sad. It bears witness to great suffering yet it includes uplifting tales of courage in adversity. The Marxist rhetoric can sound messianic and it seems that many activists truly hoped for revolutionary change but, with the benefit of hindsight, we already know that much of this energy was destined to run into the sand and that the prison situation in the USA was about to become much worse. So what can we do? Maybe we can start by celebrating the courage and energy of the generation contributing to this important book. Then start to get angry. What else?

“The Black Liberation Movement is presently at a critical juncture. Fascist methods of repression threaten to physically decapitate and obliterate the movement. More subtle, yet not less dangerous ideological tendencies from within threaten to isolate the Black movement and diminish its revolutionary impact..." [p43]

[Phathu Musitha]

“In the heat of our pursuit for fundamental human rights, Black people have been continually cautioned to be patient. We are advised that if we remain faithful to the existing democratic order, the glorious moment will eventually arrive when we will come into our own as fully-fledged human beings.” — Angela Davis

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

This classic anthology of letters, essays, poems and speeches captures a particularly volatile moment in American history, one in which reactionary right-wing forces were re-ascendant and willing to use state power to reassert their supremacy. The resulting clashes over war, civil rights, women's rights and the justice system in the early 1970s were traumatic, not least for those facing the state's proclivity toward violence. If They Come in the Morning gives a taste, if a fragmented and incomplete one, of that trauma and chaos.

Most immediately striking about this work, collected by the professor-activist Angela Davis whose own brush with the law personified the alarming extents to which political opponents of civil rights groups seemed willing to go to tar and silence them, is how much of it could be printed today with only a name-change or two and sound contemporary. Davis and her allies rail against an unholy trinity of President Richard Nixon, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and California Gov. Ronald Reagan, and the ways in which they use police and the prisons to separate, isolate and silence elements of society they deem dangerous or terroristic. The book shows concretely how seemingly race-neutral laws were used to incarcerate disproportionate numbers of blacks and Latinos especially those who were poor and male.

This intersection of race and class – the overwhelming tendency of prisoners to be workers of color – lead to another striking emphasis of Morning: its leftism. Davis was (and remains) an avowed and unashamed communist, and the prisoners whose letters she publishes join her in preaching left-wing revolution as the only way to free African Americans, Latinos and the poor generally from their oppressors. The radicalism of the language feels odd to modern ears accustomed to four decades of center- to hard-right politics being considered mainstream. Nevertheless, it's hard to deny Davis' arguments that capitalism and racism have too long gone hand in hand to impoverish and imprison African Americans, especially those who, like Davis, make the mistake of being too prosperous or too outspoken.

Overall, the book is uneven, relying as it does on the voices of imprisoned people of varying perspectives and education levels, and for a relatively recent republication (Verso's edition is from 2016), it cries out for at least a chapter updating the particularly egregious cases of injustice Davis highlights. Some of them have slipped into obscurity, and a quick Google search doesn't return immediate answers. Davis' own acquittal occurred after Morning's release, and no one apparently considered even mentioning that as part of maybe a foreword to the new edition? Closing the book, you get the distinct sense that Davis was more likely to have been executed than found not guilty.

As a historical resource, Morning is invaluable, and several essays – most of them by Davis, but also an open letter written by James Baldwin – really shine through, but a smaller, more tightly edited volume would have been more effective. The last 50 or so pages are entirely skimmable, as the arguments slip into redundancy and tedium. And really, a brief foreword or afterword updating the cases referenced in the book and bringing the timeline into the 21st century would have been incredibly helpful.

[Mansi V · Rating 3 out of 5]

The topics covered under this collection were an interesting read which highlighted the racial injustices that are still present today, 50 years after the first publication. However I don’t think it is the most accessible introduction on the topic. Whilst I liked many of the contributions, particularly those of James Baldwin and Huey P Newton, Angela Davis’ sections and other section were quite difficult to understand at times, coming from a non fiction novice. Also I think the order of the collection could have been reordered for a more coherent read, as some contributions got a bit repetitive.

[Are Kjeldsberg Skauby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Æ e itj så god på am’rikkkansk juss, men det e itj så vanskelig for kem som helst å forstå at hele skiten e pill råtten:D FAFMDÆ for alltid‼️ (Fri Alle Folkan Mine Da, Ærlig)

[Max Stolk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very very intense, but a great insight historically and emotionally, into black experiences in America with their prison, judicial, and political systems.

[Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Some us, white and Black, know how great a price has been paid to bring into existence a new consciousness, a new people, an unprecedented nation. If we know, and do nothing, we are worse than the murderers hired in our name. If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own--which it is--and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night."
--James Baldwin, "An Open Letter To My Sister, Angela Davis," November 1970

"Of what, then, is Angela Davis guilty? Of being the natural product of a society based upon racism, exploitation, and dehumanization? Of her struggle for a socialist society? Her accusers have locked her into their cells of silence for they fear what she professes, what she freely and courageously declares. But when they cannot silence her even here, when her words echo far beyond these closed and soundproofed walls, then they seek to take her life. The final solution--Death.

So, for her, the life--the struggle, are one. Not merely in conjecture, in abstract theory, but in brutal fact. For her beliefs, for her life, Angela Davis stands accused. Her life is at stake. And yet she is innocent. Innocent of the charges of murder and kidnap. She stands guilty only of loving humanity and fighting with her life for the freedom of all of us."
--The National United Comittee to free Angela Davis, November 1970

[Stéphanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cette collection de lettres, de poèmes et d'essais offre un portrait de l'incarcération d'Angela Davis en 1970, mais dépasse largement la situation individuelle de cette dernière, débordant de réflexions sur les prisonniers politiques, le système carcéral américain et sa fonction vue par divers militants et écrivains de l'époque. C'était fascinant de déceler le courage infaillible des auteurs de chaque passage face à l'adversité gigantesque à laquelle Davis et tant d'autres ont été confronté à travers l'appareil étatique et juridique qui était bien déterminé à anéantir, à travers leur emprisonnement, tout ce qu'ils représentaient. Un peu doux-amer, j'avouerai aussi, de lire cette superbe anthologie en 2021, et de constater que moult points soulevés sont encore super justes et pleins d'acuité.

Je savais qu'Angela Davis était un monument, mais pouvoir lire un discours aussi articulé et limpide est incroyable, si on se rappelle qu'elle était âgée de 26-27 ans au moment de son incarcération. Juste wow.

[TheCalloftheLibrary · Rating 4 out of 5]

been thinking a lot lately about how integral exposure to the history and intellectual condemnation of mass incarceration has been to my own ideological understanding, as a tool of radicalization in simple terms– like reading about Attica in high school completely reoriented my relationship to historical work, as well as to action, movement-building, etc etc– on top of how pressing reform (in the sense of strategy) and abolition are in the present moment of like, a culture of casual cruelty and inhumanity against the most vulnerable under the auspice of “criminality” or deserving punishment, as well as general fascist political suppression and such.

anyway, was specifically interested in this since it works primarily as a historical text itself, given that Angela Davis was arrested in 1970 and most of writing was penned during the period of uprisings and political action by prisoners which contextualizes Attica in Sept 1971(Davis writes a piece mentioning Attica, which is organized early in the volume, but much of the rest predates it- like the pieces about the BPP arrests, George Jackson, the Soledad Brothers, etc) but still resonates in it’s clear-eyed deconstruction of incarceration as a function of an unjust society, specifically a racist one stratified by wealth inequality. the emphasis on re-framing all prisoners as “political prisoners” in a system which focuses on judicial expediency, which silos low-income people into slavery, which does not do it’s due diligence in ensuring justice, is fundamentally racist, and so on is supremely helpful as it implicates the “mistakes” like wrongful imprisonment or locking people up for years w/out trial less as a function of neglect which is non-political in nature and gives it new dimensionality as a function of the system working as designed.

also interested in the writers- Baldwin’s contribution being the most philosophically eloquent addition that structures the collection beautifully, but was very interested in reading Bettina Aptheker’s work, considering her writing on queer communists is on my list, as well as George Jackson, who’s work I’ve neglected up to this point. unfortunate that, by the end, things get a little repetitive and you lose that rhetorical diversity as the minutiae of Davis’ trial takes over. also think it’s a little disappointing that this newer edition doesn’t offer post-trial contextual information since it functioned as a rallying text before her acquittal.

but really like how all these texts are emphasizing the strategic thrust of prison organizing/radicalization; Davis says that “the masses of people in this country have a real, direct and material stake in the struggle to free political prisoners, the struggle to abolish the prison system in its present form, the struggle against all dimensions of racism” and this has only become more and more significant in the context of the modern surveillance state with increasingly militarized police. even just on the basis of protecting the future of protesting and the viability of direct action, at minimum some kind of reform is so necessary. there’s also, I think, something to be said about how the American populace has proven time and time again that concerns around the justice system (specifically police brutality) can become a catalyst for action. the ineffectiveness of BLM protests long-term does not override the reality that this is a significant, motivating factor for change. there’s also a possible spark/connection to be made w/ Mangione case, if the public can transverse it. that should be taken advantage of.

anyway. Erika Huggins has a quote that I think I will carry for a long time when thinking about the possible future: “We need whole families of people. Young, old, black, brown, red, yellow, beige, whatever. Male, female, gay– everybody. Because everybody is faced with Amerikan oppression and all of us are the America that will be, you dig it?”

Quotes I saved for various reasons, particularly thinking about Davis and other contributors awareness and practical thinking with regards to revolutionary/utopic theorizing:

“It will not suffice even to mouth slogan and rhetoric. Even Richard Nixon now says “Power to the People”

“The repression cuts across ideological boundaries. To succeed, the resistance must do likewise. We must seek a unity of action, even as we maintain our organizational identities” (multiplicity of approach + made me think of ACT-UP and what successful action looks like materially)

“Nixon, Agnew, Reagan et al… mystify with their demagogy millions of Americans whose senses have been dulled and whose critical powers have been eroded by the continual onslaught of racist ideology” (going to be thinking about this rhetorical framing for a while- bigotry is that which obscures clarity and allows for the ruling class [current replacement for Nixon et al] to essentially maintain an illusion)

“Contained in the very concept of property crimes are profound but suppressed social needs which express themselves in antisocial modes of action. Spontaneously produced by a capitalist organization of society, this type of crime is at once a protest against society and a desire to partake of it exploitative content”

“In our effort to comprehend on a feeling level an existence contrary to violence, we are confronted by our captors with violence. In our effort to comprehend society’s code of ethics concerning what is fair and just, we are victimized by exploitation and the denial of the celebrated due process of the law” (striking quote from the Folsom Prisoners Manifesto)

“It is the mark of an immature revolutionary to dismiss such actions [struggles to end to the indeterminate sentence law and the abolition of penal code 4500, among others] as ‘reformist’ or ‘liberal’. Such an attitude confuses the subjective consciousness of a minority of individual revolutionaries with the objective development of the masses of people. We must draw the masses into the arena of struggle via the mechanism of a broad defense movement. The failure to do so, justified by the claim of ‘revolutionary purity’, that all or nothing stand, can too easily become a tool in the hands of our adversaries”

“The Black Panther Party, per se, is not the important factor. It is the idea, the ideas set in motion. It is the programs, the survival programs, the programs to bring us all to a unified, organized and strong juncture, at which together we can begin to transform the society into what we choose, what we need, what we desire for the benefit of us all”

[Martin Hare Michno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Angela Y. Davies makes me proud to be a Communist.

I think this book strongly conveys the significance of Angela not only for the Black Liberation movement, but also for the Communist movement. Even when all of the US forces conspired against her and attempted to frame her for a crime she did not commit, Angela was victorious. As Black woman and as a professor of Philosophy at UCLA, to proclaim herself a Communist made Angela a symbol of resistance. Reading about her trial today, as well as the injustices outlined in this collection, in the wake of the second wave of Black Lives Matter protests, figures such as Angela Davies and other Black Panthers are an inspiration.

(I got StoryGraph as an alternative to Goodreads, but it's too ugly to use atm).

[Tamara-Jo Schaapherder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Angela Davis likes to square dance! Definitely learned so so much important, essential things on top of that :) because this was an accumulation of speeches + writings, I thought it was incredibly accessible and a good starting out place for me!

[Anita · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is a book of letters but they all talk to each other and words and thoughts flow together so I don't remember now who said what. And this is a book of history but I don't know much about California's geography and Marin and Folsom and San Quentin all kind of run together for me (and that's because i live in a cash-insulated bubble!!! prisons are basically one big box to me! god dang it).

so mostly I let these missives wash over me and pretended that i'd never heard of prisons before, and these on-the-run bravehearts (angela davis is twenty FREAKING six) are so sincerely optimistic in their talk of abolishing prisons and facing down oppression and freeing political prisoners. sometimes i'll be enthusiastic about something trivial, get mocked, and think indignantly: This is the worst outcome of postmodern cynicism! That I can't even be excited about an all-you-can-eat ice cream party! But here's a shocker the worst outcome is actually that people can't be excited about the abolition of prisons. how bout Ben & Jerry's for life instead?

--

here are two Good Good quotes:
1. The categories can be best simplified by reducing them to three, the overt self-satisfied racist who doesn’t deign to hide his antipathy, the self-interdicting racist who harbors and nurtures racism in spite of their best efforts, and the unconscious racist, product of preconceived notions that must be blamed on history [...] Too much Black blood has flowed between the chasm that separates the races, it’s fundamentally unfair to expect the Black man to differentiate at a glance the self-accepting racist, the self-interdicting racist and the unconscious racist. The apologist’s term “Black racism” is either a healthy defense reflex on the part of the sincere Black partisan attempting to deal with the realistic problems of survival and elevation, or the racism of the government stooge organs.

2. Strength comes from knowledge, knowing who you are, where you want to go, what you want, knowing and accepting that you are alone on this spinning, tumbling world. No one can crawl into your mind and help you out. I’m your brother and I’m with you, come what may, and against anything or anybody in the universe that is against you, but you’ll still be alone, with your pain, discomfort, illness, elation, courage, pride, death. You don’t want anyone to crawl into your head with you, do you? If there were a god or anyone else reading some of my thoughts I would be uncomfortable in the extreme.

[Michael Fredette · Rating 5 out of 5]

If They Come in the Morning is a collection by and about imprisoned Black American radicals which was published in 1970. It focuses on the celebrated case of Angela Davis, a former UCLA professor and accomplished intellectual, accused (and later acquitted, though that's beyond the scope of this book) of orchestrating a courtroom break out to free a Soledad Brother on trial for capital murder, based on apparently flimsy and dubious evidence. Includes contributions from Davis, her legal team, and other prisoners, as well as letters of support from a variety of activists and public intellectuals (including Coretta Scott King and James Baldwin, from whom the title is taken.) I would strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in social justice, radicalism, or African-American studies.

[Nan Kirkpatrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're interested in learning more about the ways in which the state uses law enforcement as a tool for racial oppression, this is a good book to check out.

[Regret Husk]

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE !

[heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

"[W]hen formal considerations of order are placed above justice, it is usually disorder which prevails. On the other hand, out of a true and sincere respect for justice, order naturally flows."

Angela's strength of conviction is refreshing and contagious. She is clear and uncompromising in her assessment of her own case, those of political prisoners at large, and the status allotted to Black people within the U.S. Along with her co-authors, she addresses the a priori culpability rendered to Black 'criminals', who dare to transgress the societal rules which keep them in poverty. The carceral system serves as an instrument of state power, leaving prison abolition as the final recourse for millions to access justice.

It's difficult to fully grasp that these excerpts were written 50 years ago. We're still dealing with the same nonsense, if not an amplified version. Since this book was first edited, we've witnessed mass incarceration and police brutality intensify by many factors of magnitude. Wealth and income inequality have magnified in tandem. I would hope that with the events of the past year, a greater collective consciousness is forming around the urgent need to dismantle harmful institutions to make space for a socialist future.

"[O]ur fundamental strategy ought to consist...in abolishing the property relations which allow those few to hoard wealth while the masses of Black people eke out their existence at an extremely low economic level. We must destroy the institutions in which racism and exploitation are crystalized and project at the same time new institutions which will allow us to be free."

[That show will never end · Rating 5 out of 5]

Przysięgam nikt na całym świecie nie wypełnia mnie wiedzą i misją tak jak ta kobieta. Książka otwiera gigantyczny rabbit hole dotyczący kolejnego aspektu systemowej opresji. Przedstawia nie tylko historię więźniarki politycznej-Angeli, w formie zarówno autobiograficznej, jak i jako symbolu międzynarodowej walki o sprawiedliwość i równość wobec prawa. Poznajemy historię ogromnej ilości więźniów politycznych przetrzymywanych w USA, który są sądzeni za absurdalne przestepstwa i skazywani na legalne lincze. Problem jest taki, że mimo ogromu wsparcia i wielkości tej sprawy w sumie nic się nie zmieniło. Książka pokazuje w jaki sposób przeprowadzać skuteczną rewolucję i jakie są jej istotne fundamenty, a jednocześnie pokazuje że właśnie ją przesypiamy. Są fragmenty, które wprawiają w osłupienie, są momenty w których płakałam jak walnięta, ale są też takie gdzie chłonęłam każde możliwe słowo ku przestrodze. Jak zwykle jestem oburzona, że nie jest przetłumaczona na polski.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, which a strange thing to say for a book motivated by such urgent and deep injustice. So, not happy that there was a need for this book in 1972, and not happy that it remains relevant today (nor that one of the writers, now 79-year-old Ruchelle Magee, remains incarcerated four decades later).
But it is a fresh breath of air to read. The prose here hits straight and hard, a call to arms and a refusal to cede space. The book was not published for posterity. It is written with urgent specifics - to support the acquittal of Angela Davis, Magee, Ericka Huggins and Bobby Seale, among others. It is a window into another time, and yet, it often feels, that it is one in which basic realities: that policing entrenches systemic racial injustice - were spoken about more clearly.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are short, emphatic pleas for justice that both encapsulate a very specific moment in history and ring true today. Written over 50 years ago, this collection is powerful and moving and hopeful - with an aching twinge that Im sure my radical contemporaries share with me. We have lost ground on so many fronts; the tyranny that began to blossom under the Nixon and Reagan administrations has reached unprecedented levels. Whats more, many voices of resistance have been silenced, subdued, or imprisoned.

In the face of this reality, it would be easy to throw in the towel, but these essays, poems, and speeches call to respond ever stronger in the face of unbridled oppression. It is now or never. It is always now or never. 5/5

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The dignity and beauty of man rests in the human spirit which makes him more than simply a physical being. This spirit must never be suppressed for exploitation by others. As long as the people recognize the beauty of their human spirits and move against suppression and exploitation, they will be carrying out one of the most beautiful ideas of all time. Because the human whole is much greater than the sum of its parts."

[Tabea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book showcases the systematic and human injustices of political prisoners. The book consists of a collection of essays and letters, written amongst others, to Viola Davis, which greatly demonstrated the prison system in the 1970s. While one might hope for a better or revolutionary system today, the disappointment is grave, indicated in Davis' highly recommendable "Are Prisons Obsolete?"

[Cade · Rating 4 out of 5]

“When I feel cross or impatient with my brothers and sisters, I remember all the things you taught me and tears come to my eyes for the struggle you are going through.” - Matron at one of the institutions where Angela Davis was imprisoned.

[LiteraryMarie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Most Political of All Political Prisoners for Justice

[Zoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly a monumental book. Has profoundly shaped the way I understand the prison system and the nature of political prisoners.

[Lisa McMillon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gives new meaning to the term "political prisoners", as it explores the controversial trial of Angela Davis. It exposes the inhumane daily occurences within the prison judical system. Part of the appeal of this book is, it includes the voices of so many activist that organized a compaign to free Angela Davis and all political prisoners. I found it interesting that the knowedge from this book is with held from our history books.
This book should be required reading for high school seniors or college freshmen because of it' power to influence future leaders.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published in 1971, this collection of essays, letters, poems, and first person accounts takes the reader back to the arrest, and attempted state-sanctioned murder, of Angela Davis.

My top 3 most breathtaking sections include the poems of Erika Huggins, the courtroom statement delivered by Ruchell Magee, and the prison interview with Davis. I enjoyed the first hand accounts more than the written essays, but altogether, they created a rich and immerse narrative necessary for the telling of this story.

[Ashe Dryden · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection of essays, letters, and other works. Didn’t feel super cohesive and it definitely drags in places, but where it’s good it is VERY good.

(Highlights below as I purchased this book from Haymarket and not Amazon)


- The American triumph—in which the American tragedy has always been implicit—was to make Black people despise themselves.


- as long as white Americans take refuge in their whiteness—for so long as they are unable to walk out of this most monstrous of traps—they will allow millions of people to be slaughtered in their name, and will be manipulated into and surrender themselves to what they will think of—and justify—as a racial war. They will never, so long as their whiteness puts so sinister a distance between themselves and their own experience and the experience of others, feel themselves sufficiently human, sufficiently worthwhile, to become responsible for themselves, their leaders, their country, their children, or their fate. They will perish (as we once put it in our Black church) in their sins—that is, in their delusions. And this is happening, needless to say, already, all around us.


- Nat Turner and John Brown can be viewed as examples of the political prisoner who has actually committed an act which is defined by the state as “criminal.” They killed and were consequently tried for murder. But did they commit murder? This raises the question of whether American revolutionaries had murdered the British in their struggle for liberation. Nat Turner and his followers killed some 65 white people, yet shortly before the Revolt had begun, Nat is reputed to have said to the other rebelling slaves: “Remember that ours is not war for robbery nor to satisfy our passions, it is a struggle for freedom. Ours must be deeds not words.”


- The battle for the liquidation of slavery had no legitimate existence in the eyes of the government and therefore the special quality of deeds carried out in the interests of freedom was deliberately ignored. There were no political prisoners, there were only criminals; just as the movement out of which these deeds flowed was largely considered criminal.


- The political act is defined as criminal in order to discredit radical and revolutionary movements. A political event is reduced to a criminal event in order to affirm the absolute invulnerability of the existing order.


- Indeed, the assistant warden at San Quentin, who is by profession a clinical psychologist, tells us in a recent interview that prisoners suffer from “retarded emotional growth.” The warden continues: “The first goal of the prison is to isolate people the community doesn’t want at large. Safe confinement is the goal. The second obligation is a reasonably good housekeeping job, the old humanitarian treatment concept.”2 That is, once the prisoner is adequately confined and isolated, he may be treated for his emotional and psychological maladies—which he is assumed to suffer by virtue of the fact that he is a prisoner. We have a completely circular method of reasoning. It is a closed-circuit system from which there is no apparent escape. The alleged criminal


- Professor Theodore Sarbin of the University of California criminology department put it very well: “… membership in the class of people known as ‘law-breakers’ is not distributed according to economic or social status, but membership in the class ‘criminals’ is distributed according to social or economic status … ”6 Example: the ten executives of the General Electric Company convicted in 1961 of price-fixing involving tens of millions of dollars are law-breakers, and some of them actually served some months in prison. Still, the society does not consider them criminals. By way of contrast, a Chicano or Black youth alleged to have stolen ten dollars from a grocery store is not only considered a criminal by the society, but this assumption allows the police to act with impunity. They may shoot him down in the street. Chances are it will be ruled justifiable homicide in a coroner’s inquest.


- consider penology as the confinement and treatment of people who are actually or potentially disruptive of the social system.


- In an increasing number of ways the entire judicial and penal system involving the police, the courts, the prisons and the parole boards has become a mechanism through which the ruling powers seek to maintain their physical and psychological control, or the threat of control, over millions of working people, especially young people, and most especially Black and Brown young people. The spectre of the prisons, the behavioral psychologists, the Adult Authority, the judicial treadmill, haunts the community.


- “indeterminate sentences” for felony convictions, e.g. one year to life imprisonment, gives the parole board incredible powers.


- For once you accept the behavioralist view of the criminal as morally depraved or mentally defective it is perfectly logical to preventively detain all persons who manifest such tendencies and are therefore potential criminals. Thus, in April 1970 a leading physician and close associate of President Nixon proposed that the government begin the mass testing of 6-to 8-year-old children to determine if they have criminal-behavior tendencies. He then suggested “treatment camps” for the severely disturbed child and the young hard-core criminal.


- Banfield’s analysis of the urban crisis exactly coincides with the behavioralists’ view of the criminal. That is, the cause of the urban crisis lies with the existence of what Banfield calls the “lower classes” who are poverty-prone. These lower classes are of course working people, and Black and Brown people in particular. They are, Banfield would have us believe, morally depraved and mentally defective.


- Banfield’s description of the lower class is in fact a description of the criminal. And it is precisely at this moment when the description of the lower class and the description of the criminal coincide that we have a central aspect of the ideological basis for fascism and genocide. This is exactly Banfield’s program.


- He argues that the people at the bottom of the society are exploited for the profit and advantage of those at the top. Thus, the oppressed exist, and will always be used to maintain the privileged status of the exploiters.


- America is a prison. As Brother Huey P. Newton stated, the only difference is that one is maximum and the other minimum security.


- As Brother Malcolm X once said, “We as people, as human beings have the basic human right to eliminate the conditions that have and are continuously destroying us.”


- Historically the prison system has been an integral part of our lives. Black people emerged from slavery only to encounter the prison labor system as one element of the new apparatus of exploitation. Arrested for trivial or falsified offenses, Blacks were leased out to politicians, planters, mining firms, and Northern syndicates for up to thirty years. A remnant of that era can still be detected, for example, in Arkansas’ notorious Cummins’ Prison Farm where prisoners work for no pay in cotton fields five and a half days a week. While more insidious forms of slave labor have persisted in the prisons, this broader social function of maintaining the existing socio-economic order has achieved monstrous proportions.


- There are more prisons of all categories in the United States than in all other countries of the world combined.


- Most crime, however, is clearly the simple effect of a grossly disproportionate distribution of wealth and privilege, a reflection of the state of present property relations. There are no wealthy men on death row, and so very few in the general prison population that we can discount them altogether—imprisonment is an aspect of class struggle from the outset.