Swarthmore College’s Cooper Series welcomed renowned activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis to campus for a conversation with esteemed philosopher Lucius T. Outlaw. This was the final event of the Fall 2024 theme for the series, “Global Justice: Historical Present, Imagined Futures.” Free and open to the public, the event was held in Pearson Hall Theatre and attended by hundreds of Tri-Co students as well as the general public. Attendees lined up outside of Pearson Theatre on November 20 before doors opened at 6:30 p.m. Before long, a satellite screening room had to be set up in a room next door to accommodate the overflow of attendees.
The event began at 7 p.m. where an introduction was given by Swarthmore professor of Philosophy Peace & Conflict Studies, Sabeen Ahmed. Following an introduction to the Cooper series, Professor Ahmed offered a land acknowledgment and encouraged attendees to reflect, “how [can] we interpret land acknowledgments in the context of Palestine?” She went in to note that “our presence (on Lenape land) is not simply a tragic one, it is an intolerable one.” Professor Sabeen then introduced the two speakers, stating that they are “intellectual mentors and movement elders, lifelong participants in the struggle of collective liberation.”
On organizing the event, Professor Ahmed told the Bi-Co News that the plan was initially “for Dr. Davis’s visit to take the form of a public lecture, but she herself preferred something more conversational. (This was one of those moments of recalibration and adaptation that always comes with organizing!) As a result, I suggested that we invite Dr. Outlaw to be her conversant. Lou is a former professor and mentor of mine from my time at Vanderbilt and a longtime acquaintance of Angela’s …and I knew that the two would bring an honest, grounded, and much-needed perspective to our community that was both energizing and healing. Plus, given both of their histories with Haverford and Swarthmore, [Dr Outlaw taught at Haverford College and Dr Davis’ sister attended Swartmore College] I thought having them reunite here in the Tri-Co would be extra special!”
As Dr Davis and Dr Outlaw took the stage, the audience rose to their feet in a standing ovation. Dr Outlaw began the talk by reflecting on his long-standing friendship with Dr Davis, stating “it has been more than 50 years that I have enjoyed a friendship and relationship with [Dr Davis].” He then turned to her with a familiar question: “how are you doing?” garnering laughs from the crowd and a candid response from Davis: “I’ve been better.”
She continued, “how I’m feeling is a reflection of how at least half of the country is feeling right now. It reminds me that regardless of our emotional states, we have to continue to engage in struggle. We have to learn how to be sad and depressed and still fight.”
When asked by Dr Outlaw about how she has sustained herself within activism and social justice for over half a century, Dr Davis paused for a moment before stating, “I don’t know if I would answer that question as an individual because I really have no idea what I would be doing now… had I not always been part of a larger collective.” Much of her remarks throughout the talk were focused on the importance of collective activism and community as she also noted that she had to “fight for her right to teach, not alone but with other faculty and students who also engaged in that struggle.”
One Bi-Co attendee, Parker Ofner (BMC ’28), who told the Bi-Co News that they decided to attend the event because of their interest in prison reform and social justice movements, stated, “I left the talk with a feeling of hope. Especially with the event being right after the election, it was important to have such a well-known activist basically reassuring us that the fight for equality and a better future doesn’t stop under unideal circumstances, to say the least.”
Recounting further her own experiences as a student and an academic within universities, Dr Davis stated the importance of thinking “critically about the elite character of these institutions and to ask questions about the production of knowledge.” She noted especially that where knowledge is produced is not simply concentrated in the university but in a variety of venues.
“Knowledge is produced through struggle, both on campuses and in the streets,” she said.
As a major figure in the prison abolition movement, Dr Davis spoke at length about the intellectual environment within prisons. She stated that the experiences of her friends and colleagues who have taught inside prisons are a reminder that those are the most difficult classes because of the particular way of “addressing the projection of knowledge. We have these prisoners who, many of them never even got the opportunity to finish high school,” and yet these experiences reflect that there is an “intellectual energy that [the teachers] could not have imagined [in prison classrooms]… this sense of where knowledge can be produced outside of the professionalized pursuit of knowledge is very important.”
Another Bi-Co attendee, Aish Gowrishankar (BMC ’26), told the Bi-Co News she thinks that often, “the name (reputation) of a school attaches value to the knowledge produced. But there are other places to learn; in day to day life or a job where you gain skills but those things aren’t valued in the way that a degree is. But I do feel that the people who attended the talk are people who already agree with her, so they weren’t really the people who desperately needed to hear her points. Her talk was important for us, like, I learnt a lot but the people who actually need to do the work and think about this stuff didn’t get to hear it.”
Dr Lucius also noted the importance of critical thinking within academic institutions and socially, stating that we are “reproducing successive generations of people who are inheriting this country… How do we prepare them?” As Dr Davis reflected briefly on her high school education in New York and her study of philosophy, she emphasized that critical theory and philosophical theory must, indeed, be utilized in activism. She urged the audiences to remember that “you cannot just wallow in the beauty of these ideals, these philosophical ideals, but you have to figure out how to change the world… One can use existing disciplines to learn more about the possibilities of creating a better world.”
Dr Davis received her bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University where she studied philosophy under Herbert Marcuse. As Brandeis was founded in the same year as the State of Israel, Davis mentioned that her “consciousness about Palestine was sparked by attending Brandeis.” She continued that she “had Jewish friends who were very disturbed by what was happening in Palestine at that time and this was before 1967.” She also noted that Marcuse, who was Jewish, also “eventually came to understand that if he was someone who spoke out against oppression all over the world that certainly the cause of the Palestinian people had to be included.”
On the importance of activism and social justice in the context of Palestine, Dr Davis expressed, “I wanted to make sure that the Palestinian issue was not marginalized to the extent that it only served as an issue by itself for itself [that is, outside the context of other social justice movements] … What I’m trying to express now is the horrendous sadness and depression that has been created by the violent assaults by the State of Israel on Gaza and the West Bank.” Dr Davis mentioned that much of the activism around the Palestinian cause has been an effort to break the silence and that she feels “joy” that after over 50 to 60 years “there are people recognizing that Zionism is not good for the world. It’s not good for human beings, it’s not good for our communities, it’s not good for our environment.”
Attendees showed audible support for this statement, contentious in the context of discourse on the topic of Zionism throughout the Tri-Co this year, which has been understandably tense as violence in Israel and Palestine escalates, anti-Zionist groups protest the ongoing war in Israel and Palestine and the upholding of Zionist ideals, and Zionist student groups push back against this narrative, continuing to support the existence of the state of Israel as the Jewish homeland.
On the topic of critical thinking and discourse, Dr Outlaw ardently stated that “you can’t be neutral about having basic principle, ethically structured discourse.” He referencing Vanderbilt University’s treatment of student protestors, and the expectation from several colleges across the nation that protestors apply for permits to hold demonstrations, calling that policy “utterly absurd.” He said that during the protests in his day, students would “come back from the jail, to the college, singing freedom songs, taking a shower and then going right back out on the street.”
Speaking on Dr Outlaw’s statements in relation to the disciplinary actions threatened against Bryn Mawr students during the encampment set up in the Spring of last semester, Aish Gowrishankar stated “that was such a good point on his part. It made me think about two things; one was Bryn Mawr College saying they need to ‘maintain neutrality’ which is not true because they are not neutral. We have supported Ukraine and women’s rights openly which are all political but also the existence of a women’s college is inherently political. The fact that this college exists is directly against the status quo. So to say ‘we will remain neutral and our discourse will be open and we won’t pick a side’ is picking and choosing where to speak up; thereby not remaining neutral.”
Dr Davis also brought up the involvement of the State of Israel in international and global affairs, and “the role that it plays as an outpost of capitalism,” dealing in the arms trade. Touching on the horrors of the Holocaust and its lasting impact on the world, she asserted, “if you recognize that human beings should not be subject to that kind of brutality … then you have to ask why the State of Israel provides arms for [so many] … major conflicts in the world.”
“What is so remarkable about the ways in which Palestinian people have suffered and at the same time have fought back is that they provide us with a model of not giving up, of never giving up, which we desperately need at this particular moment in history,” she noted, followed by applause from the audience.
At 8 p.m., the conversation between Dr Davis and Dr Outlaw drew to a close. The speakers received another standing ovation from the audience, and Professor Sabeen began the Q&A portion of the event. The first question was directed towards Dr Davis, and asked if she would speak to her relationship with Ruchell Magee, who was Davis’ codefendant in 1970 in connection to the Marin County Civic Center attacks. Davis was charged with three capital crimes, and Magee pled guilty to aggravated kidnapping; he was initially sentenced to life without parole, and died only two months after being released from San Quentin, in October of 2023. “Ruchell was the first person I ever encountered who made connections between the existing prison system and slavery,” Davis said, “As a matter of fact, he referred to what happened on August 7 1970 as a slave revolt… Thank you for asking me that question because in many ways I see myself as someone who has survived and I never imagined that I would be speaking to audiences at the age of more than 80 years old, but I am, and it’s my obligation to speak about it, to a certain extent for those who were never able to make it this far. So thank you so much for raising Ruchell Magee.”
The second question was asked by Bryn Mawr student Parker Ofner, who asked both attendees whether they believed violent protest was necessary to progress social justice movements. Outlaw came to the ultimate conclusion that violent protest was not the answer, especially for college students. “Violence begets violence,” he said. In her answer, however, Davis recalled being asked the same question by a reporter while she was in prison, in 1972. She told the journalist then that she resents being asked about her position on this kind of violence. “Why don’t you pose that question to those who are in possession of the means of inflicting violence?” She said. “You know, don’t ask the Palestinian kid who throws rocks at the IDF out of frustration, but ask the question of the IDF!” to which the audience erupted in applause once more. Ofner told the Bi-Co News, “all of her comments throughout the event were extremely wise; you could tell that her experience and academic pursuits were both informing the views she expressed.”
A third student asked, “How can you fight when you’re being actively ignored by your institution?” Both Davis and Outlaw asserted that activism isn’t only about being on the streets, and showing your face. Sometimes alternative action is the best way forward. “Not everyone faces the same kinds of repercussions who are engaging in public protest, and not everyone can do everything all the time,” Davis said. “Activism is something we have to negotiate… it’s about making art, thinking and writing…”
One student asked the speakers to talk about whether institutions such as Swarthmore have ethical and moral responsibilities to divest from “something like genocide, under a quote unquote ‘ban on ethical investments.'” Davis, in response, noted that oftentimes “we forget that the work happens afterwards, the work is not dramatic and as Dutschke and Marcuse said. It involves a long march through the institutions. Oftentimes we don’t take that so seriously because the institution appears to be – and is – the adversary, and so our instinct is so smash the institution… it’s often hard to juggle that sense of creating a legacy for those who are yet to come and at the same time, challenging the institution that is so responsible for so many of the problems that we are trying to engage with.” She concluded with a general suggestion: “try to create the capacity to fit in that kind of large campus both in terms of space and in terms of time. And then imagine how you and your collective will contribute to that space right now, at this moment.” Davis and Outlaw both emphasized the opportunity college students have to spend these four years engaging in intellectual work. Outlaw told students to “think beyond the temporality of the college years,” and practice “revolutionary patience.”
At the same time, Davis said, it has “always been young people who are at the forefront of revolution because it is your future … Oftentimes it is that fire of youth that gets things done.” She reminded her young audience, “you are going to teach yourselves, and you’re going to teach us as well.”
Echoing this sentiment, when asked about the role of universities in social justice movements, Professor Ahmed noted “I think we need to be honest with ourselves about the limits of these institutions in being proactive or even accountable in moments of moral collapse. At the same time, though, it is the people who inhabit these institutions who recognize that the university is an immensely significant site for the (re-)production of this unjust world, and thus that they/we occupy a unique position from which to participate in the struggle. What the last century of student activism and campus protests have shown us is that students, staff, and faculty mobilizing in the pursuit of social justice are always on the right side of history. This is something that scholar-activists like Angela and Lou have always embraced, and it is what keeps so many of us dedicated to the cause of higher education in spite of its bleak, institutional reality.”
As the audience rose to their feet for one final, resounding round of applause, Professor Sabeen expressed her gratitude to the speakers once more before they left the stage. As the theatre slowly emptied, a palpable sense of hope and excitement lingered in the air, echoing the energy of the event.
