Davis's arrest was followed by a 16-month incarceration and a huge global campaign to “Free Angela Davis,” leading to her acquittal in 1972. An acclaimed author, academic and advocate for prison reform, Davis has since described those two years as a “formative” period for what became her lifelong work. Davis Campaigns for the Release of the Soledad Brothers When the founding fathers of the United States met to sign the declaration of independence, they spoke what they believed in, and they were the original patriots of the US. Now it's considered to be unpatriotic to speak your mind."

I can't remember how I found out about this book. Maybe it was mentioned in some documentary, or it was referenced by some Wikipedia article I was reading. When I marked it to read, I found that a friend had previously read it, which encouraged me to give it a try. Davis and other writers] have generated an intersectional viewpoint from which to examine the utility of prisons, from a feminist perspective and from an anti-racist point of view,” saysDiego H.Alcalá Laboya lawyer specializing in prison rights who is starting a teaching position at the Widener University Delaware Law School.“In the U.S., there is a direct connection between race and [imprisonment], and hers is a significative contribution in that regard.” Negro Prisoners Begin Hunger Strike in Bid for Investigation". The Bulletin. January 15, 1970 . Retrieved August 11, 2010. A couple of months ago, on a train from San Francisco to Los Angeles, I passed Soledad Prison, which reminded me of this book. It's interesting, however, when Angela Davis appears in the book. She appears toward the end of the book, no doubt as George writes to her following her hounding by old bonzo dog doo head Ronald Reagan, then governator of California and scourge of all things left-learning. She's a communist. And she's a feminist. And given the tenor of George's letters to her, she's had a word with him about his attitude to the sisters in the movement.Cummins, Eric (1994). The Rise and Fall of California's Radical Prison Movement. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-2231-5. OCLC 28112851. Xavier was born in St Lucia in the Caribbean in 1945. He grew up in poverty, and his first encounter with art came at the age of 17 whilst he was working in agriculture in Barbados, with the gift of a box of paints from a flatmate. His early works focused on the beauty he saw in the natural world around him, but his focus would soon change to that of political and environmental protest. And his diagnosis? "Oh, she had pneumonia," he says matter-of-factly. "She was coughing yellow phlegm." By way of reward, the airline gave him 10,000 frequent flyer miles. xxiv] Eve Pell, We Used to Own the Bronx: Memoirs of a Former Debutante. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009), 175. The quote is from Erlinda Castro.

The book portrayed prison officials as vicious racists and brought crushing press attention to bear on conditions in California prisons. It created a highly volatile situation in the prison system, endangering both guards and inmates. [xxi] Min S Yee. The Melancholy History of Soledad Prison; In Which a Utopian Scheme Turns Bedlam (1973); ISBN 0-06-129800-X On August 18, 1970, AngelaYvonneDavis became the third woman ever placed on the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list, sought for her supposed involvement in kidnappings and murders growing out of an armed seizure of a Marin County Courthouse in California. Until her arrest two months later, photos of the 26-year-old university professor and activist with her iconic Afro hairstyle appeared on an FBI poster along with a warning that she should be considered “armed and dangerous.” The path that has brought it to us today, however, isn't half as straightforward. The fortunes of the Soledad Brothers are, after all, tied up inextricably with the labyrinthine music scene of the midwestern United States.Needless to say, Fay and her horny assistants earned the burning contempt and anger of the prison administration. Fostering the resentment of the inmates and encouraging their violent revolutionary fantasies made the California prisons a ferment of discontent. Correctional officers could see an explosion on the horizon.

And he does a great line in longing. He falls in love -- or maybe it's infatuation -- with his female correspondents, and is really quite poetic in his letters to them. He writes, I think, with a kind of frustrated fantasticness (not a word, I fear) that's really a pleasure to read.a b Aptheker, B. (1999). The Morning Breaks: The Trial of Angela Davis. Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801485978 . Retrieved April 13, 2015.