The K-State Black Student Union will host civil rights activist and educator Angela Davis for the annual Black History Month keynote address at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 1 in the K-State Student Union’s Grand Ballroom. Doors will open at 6:45 p.m. The topic of Davis’ lecture will be “Institutional Racism & Criminal Justice System.”
Davis is most known for her advocacy for gender equality, prison reform, and alliances across color lines. She is the author of nine books, including “Blues Legacies and Black Feminism” and “Are Prisons Obsolete?” Her most recent book, “Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement,” a collection of essays, was published in October 2015.
Davis is a founding member of Critical Resistance, a national organization dedicated to the dismantling of the prison industrial complex. Internationally, she is affiliated with Sisters Inside, an abolitionist organization based in Queensland, Australia that works in solidarity with women in prison.
She has lectured throughout the United States, in addition to Europe, Asia, South America and Australia. In recent years, Davis has been working diligently to change social issues associated with incarceration and the penal system, speaking mostly from her experience of incarceration in the 1970s after being placed on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list. From her own personal experiences, Davis encourages audiences to challenge ideas of incarceration and to think toward the possibility of a world without prisons.
Following the lecture, Black Student Union will be host a bevy of other events for the K-State community, including “The First, The Only, The Obamas,” a President’s Day tribute to the Obama family, and the annual “Soul Café” poetry slam, headlined by national award winning poet Crystal Valentine.
The theme for Black History Month is “Thirsty for Knowledge, Hungry for Change.”