Status Updates From Angela Davis: An Autobiography

Profit was the word: the cold and constant motive for the behavior, the contempt, and the despair I had seen.

What had seemed a personal hatred of me, an inexplicable refusal of Southern whites to confront their own emotions, and a stubborn willingness of Blacks to acquiesce, became the inevitable consequence of a ruthless system that kept itself alive and well by encouraging spite, competition, and the oppression of one group by another.