Angela Davis is iconic as an international figure but few recognize the educational, political and ideological contexts that formed the public persona. Excavating layers of networks, activists, academics, polemicists, and funders across the ideological spectrum, Joy James studies the paradigms and platforms that leveraged Angela Davis into recognition as an activist and radical intellectual. Beginning in Alabama in 1944 with Davis’s birthplace and ending in California in 1970 with a surrogate political family, James investigates context in order to better understand the agency and identity of Davis. Her chronology marks key events relevant to Davis, Black communities, and the US: AntiBlack repression under Jim Crow, Black bourgeois southern families, revolutionaries, elite education, communist parties, international travels, undergrad and graduate schooling—all interconnect and play a part in Davis's rise in stature from persecution as a UC graduate student to the UC Presidential chair some three decades later. Set against the backdrop of 21st-century US democracy and the rise of neofascists, James highlights of the centrality of those considered ancillary to US liberation movements. She unpicks the contradictions of iconography and revolutionary agency and shows how a triumphal figure from a symbolic era of struggle became the icon of the rare peoples’ victory.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

The United States has the highest incarceration and execution rate in the industrialized world: 70 percent of the nearly two million people incarcerated in prisons and immigration detention centers are people of color. States of Confinement uncovers the political, social, and economic biases in policing and punishment. The distinguished contributors--Angela Y. Davis, Manning Marable, Gary Marx, Robert Meeropol, Julie Su, and Judi Bari--discuss profiling and sentencing disparities in American society. They explose racial profiling and sentencing disparities that target African American and Latinos, the sexual exploitation of women in custody, racist and homophobic violence, the policing of Asian Americans and Arabs, the conditions of HIV-positive prisoners, and the use of the Grand Jury and police to undermine political activity.Statistics like these, and the often unsafe conditions under which people are imprisoned, make an analysis of incarceration urgent and timely. The distinguished authors of this collection use their diverse experiences and expertise to discuss troubling abuses of police powers in our society.

'A powerful - even startling - book that challenges the shibboleths of 'white' anarchism'. Its analysis of police violence and the threat of fascism are as important now as they were at the end of the 1970s. Perhaps more so' - Peter James Hudson, Black Agenda Report Anarchism and the Black Revolution first connected Black radical thought to anarchist theory in 1979. Now amidst a rising tide of Black political organizing, this foundational classic written by a key figure of the Civil Rights movement is republished with a wealth of original material for a new generation. Anarchist theory has long suffered from a whiteness problem. This book places its critique of both capitalism and racism firmly at the centre of the text. Making a powerful case for the building of a Black revolutionary movement that rejects sexism, homophobia, militarism and racism, Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin counters the lies and distortions about anarchism spread by its left- and right-wing opponents alike. New material includes an interview with writer and activist William C. Anderson, as well as new essays, and a contextualizing biography of the author's inspiring life.

Prisons constitute one of the most controversial and contested sites in a democratic society. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the industrialized world, with over 2 million people in jails, prisons, and detention centers; with over three thousand on death row, it is also one of the few developed countries that continues to deploy the death penalty. International Human Rights Organizations such as Amnesty International have also noted the scores of political prisoners in U.S. detention. This anthology examines a class of intellectuals whose analyses of U.S. society, politics, culture, and social justice are rarely referenced in conventional political speech or academic discourse. Yet this body of outlawed 'public intellectuals' offers some of the most incisive analyses of our society and shared humanity. Here former and current U.S. political prisoners and activists-writers from the civil rights/black power, women's, gay/lesbian, American Indian, Puerto Rican Independence and anti-war movements share varying progressive critiques and theories on radical democracy and revolutionary struggle. This rarely-referenced 'resistance literature' reflects the growing public interest in incarceration sites, intellectual and political dissent for social justice, and the possibilities of democratic transformations. Such anthologies also spark new discussions and debates about 'reading'; for as Barbara Harlow notes: 'Reading prison writing must. . . demand a correspondingly activist counterapproach to that of passivity, aesthetic gratification, and the pleasures of consumption that are traditionally sanctioned by the academic disciplining of literature.' Barbara Harlow 1] 1. Barbara Harlow, Barred: Women, Writing, and Political Detention (New England: Wesleyan University Press, 1992). Royalties are reserved for educational initiatives on human rights and U.S. incarceration.

New Bones Abolition addresses “those of us broken enough to grow new bones” in order to stabilize our political traditions that renew freedom struggles. Reflecting on police violence, political movements, Black feminism, Erica Garner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, caretakers and compradors, Joy James analyzes the “Captive Maternal,” which emerges from legacies of colonialism, chattel slavery and predatory policing, to explore the stages of resistance and communal rebellion that manifest through war resistance. She recognizes a long line of gendered and ungendered freedom fighters, who, within a racialized and economically-stratified democracy, transform from coerced or conflicted caretakers into builders of movements, who realize the necessity of maroon spaces, and ultimately the inevitability of becoming war resisters that mobilize against genocide and state violence. New Bones Abolition weaves a narrative of a historically complex and engaged people seeking to quell state violence. James discusses the contributions of the mother Mamie Till-Mobley who held a 1955 open-casket funeral for her fourteen-year-old Emmett Till, murdered by white nationalists; the 1971 rebels at Attica prison; the resilience of political prisoners despite the surplus torture they endured; the emergence of Black feminists as political theorists; human rights advocates seeking abolition; and the radical intellectualism of Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner slain in 2014 by the NYPD. James positions the Captive Maternal within the evolution of contemporary abolition. Her meditation on, and theorizing of, Black radicals and revolutionaries works to honor Agape-driven communities and organizers that deter state/police predatory violence through love, caretaking, protest, movements, marronage, and war resistance.

Angela Davis is iconic as an international figure but few recognize the educational, political and ideological contexts that formed the public persona. Excavating layers of networks, activists, academics, polemicists, and funders across the ideological spectrum, Joy James studies the paradigms and platforms that leveraged Angela Davis into recognition as an activist and radical intellectual. Beginning in Alabama in 1944 with Davis’s birthplace and ending in California in 1970 with a surrogate political family, James investigates context in order to better understand the agency and identity of Davis. Her chronology marks key events relevant to Davis, Black communities, and the US: AntiBlack repression under Jim Crow, Black bourgeois southern families, revolutionaries, elite education, communist parties, international travels, undergrad and graduate schooling—all interconnect and play a part in Davis's rise in stature from persecution as a UC graduate student to the UC Presidential chair some three decades later. Set against the backdrop of 21st-century US democracy and the rise of neofascists, James highlights of the centrality of those considered ancillary to US liberation movements. She unpicks the contradictions of iconography and revolutionary agency and shows how a triumphal figure from a symbolic era of struggle became the icon of the rare peoples’ victory.

'A powerful - even startling - book that challenges the shibboleths of 'white' anarchism'. Its analysis of police violence and the threat of fascism are as important now as they were at the end of the 1970s. Perhaps more so' - Peter James Hudson, Black Agenda Report Anarchism and the Black Revolution first connected Black radical thought to anarchist theory in 1979. Now amidst a rising tide of Black political organizing, this foundational classic written by a key figure of the Civil Rights movement is republished with a wealth of original material for a new generation. Anarchist theory has long suffered from a whiteness problem. This book places its critique of both capitalism and racism firmly at the centre of the text. Making a powerful case for the building of a Black revolutionary movement that rejects sexism, homophobia, militarism and racism, Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin counters the lies and distortions about anarchism spread by its left- and right-wing opponents alike. New material includes an interview with writer and activist William C. Anderson, as well as new essays, and a contextualizing biography of the author's inspiring life.

The United States has the highest incarceration and execution rate in the industrialized world; 70 percent of the nearly two million incarcerated in prisons and immigration detention centers are people of color. States of Confinement uncovers the political, social, and economic biases in policing and punishment. The distinguished contributors— Angela Y. Davis, Manning Marable, Gary Marx, Robert Meeropol, Julie Su, and Judi Bari—discuss abuses of police powers in American society. They expose racial profiling and sentencing disparities that target African Americans and Latinos, the sexual exploitation of women, racist and homophobic violence, the policing of Asian Americans and Arabs, the conditions of HIV-positive prisoners, the use of the Grand Jury and police to undermine political activity, and environmental activism.

For three decades, Angela Y. Davis has written on liberation theory and democratic praxis. Challenging the foundations of mainstream discourse, her analyses of culture, gender, capital, and race have profoundly influenced democratic theory, antiracist feminism, critical studies and political struggles.

Even for readers who primarily know her as a revolutionary of the late 1960s and early 1970s (or as a political icon for militant activism) she has greatly expanded the scope and range of social philosophy and political theory. Expanding critical theory, contemporary progressive theorists - engaged in justice struggles - will find their thought influenced by the liberation praxis of Angela Y. Davis.

"The Angela Y. Davis Reader" presents eighteen essays from her writings and interviews which have appeared in "If They Come in the Morning, Women, Race, and Class, Women, Culture, and Politics, " and "Black Women and the Blues" as well as articles published in women's, ethnic/black studies and communist journals, and cultural studies anthologies. In four parts - "Prisons, Repression, and Resistance," "Marxism, Anti-Racism, and Feminism," "Aesthetics and Culture," and recent interviews - Davis examines revolutionary politics and intellectualism.

Davis's discourse chronicles progressive political movements and social philosophy. It is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary political philosophy, critical race theory, social theory, ethnic studies, American studies, African American studies, cultural theory, feminist philosophy, gender studies.

As the political climate of the United States moves rightward, effective and visionary voices from the left become both rarer and more essential. In this volume, the author provides such a voice. Taking the convergence of race, gender and class as fundamental trajectories, the author offers an account of a world in which the United States functions as the political-police centre. At its core, the work is about the many ways the current structure of American government and society is inimical to human rights. The author examines the prevalence of racist violence in US politics, making connections between seemingly disparate themes and events, and linking global and US domestic politics. In the systematic nature of state violence, James sees a possibility of hope in the building of coalitions across race, class, gender and national divides. She argues that the very commonality that makes the system seem so overpowering can serve as the basis for resistance - that the elements that hold together a web of oppression and misuse of power also mark its vulnerabilities, especially when confronted with an equally systematic resistance. The author offers solutions for the dilemmas facing progressive politics and the individuals who work to achieve social justice. This is a guidebook for those who want to understand that forces that hinder social change, and to effectively move beyond them.