By John Custodio

Civil rights activist Angela Davis spoke at Tyler Hall’s Waterman Theatre for SUNY Oswego’s 33rd annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration, discussing race, capitalism and world politics before answering student questions.

Student Gabrielle Golfo was the event host, introducing speakers and performers before Davis’s lecture. Alpha Phi Alpha president Tony Jones spoke about the importance of SUNY Oswego’s Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration with its creation in 1989 by Tony Henderson and Duane Amie Oudenhoven.

“They founded tonight’s program to embrace and inform the Oswego community, students and faculty and staff of Doctor King,” Jones said. “And to celebrate and acknowledge his contributions to humanity and to honor his legacy.” 

After Jones, the SUNY Oswego Gospel Choir, directed by senior Kamal Morales, sang a “Freedom Medley,” including Nina Simone’s “Blackbird” with a solo from senior Michael Jean. The Gospel Choir also performed “Feeling Good,” popularized by Simone’s 1965 cover with a solo from Taylor Larsen.

Student Association President Takayla Beckon spoke next, thanking Davis for coming to SUNY Oswego and the audience for attending. 

“I would like to thank the MLK planing committee for organizing tonight’s crazy, wild event,” Beckon said. “And at that, I would also like to recognize the crazy, wild people that we have here, right here in our community, that are torchbearers who fight every day to continue the work that many of our ancestors have walked through wildfire to get us to where we are today.”

Freshman Anyi Hernandez followed Beckon, performing “I Was Here,” originally sang by Beyoncé.

After Hernandez, Rickey Strachen spoke, reading his poem “Melinated Daydreaming.” Strachen’s poem included lines such as “when I daydream about the black experience, about my experience, most times my mind thinks along the lines of survival.”

Strachen’s poem continued, saying “I daydream my fellow brother gets pulled over but it doesn’t end with him never driving again. I daydream my friend isn’t deemed one resisting and after some blue insisting, shot down in a violent end. I daydream that our advocates don’t have to get chased by the government for simply demanding us to have a grain of respect.”

Before the event, Strachen said he was happy that Davis was coming to Oswego, as he has looked up to her and been inspired by her for years. Strachen said he feels it showed SUNY Oswego is moving in the right direction.

After Strachen’s reading, Morales discussed about the history of the “Black National Anthem,” or “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” written by James Weldon Johnson in 1900 and put to music in 1905. Morales performed the song after the speech, singing lines such as “Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us.”

Senior Ziya Myers introduced Davis after Morales’s solo performance.

“To be be black, woman, and queer in this country is to constantly advocate for intersectionality while ensuring that you are not excluding other labels that you are attached to,” Myers said. “Today I am introducing a speaker, one who we may hear about in the Dr. Marshall’s, Dr. Clark’s and many other black professors’ classrooms who discuss the work that she and many other influential black figures have come before us have done for our community.”

Myers spoke about Davis’s work as a civil rights activist, feminist and professor, along with her multiple publications and public speaking events across six continents. 

“Please join me in giving a warm round of applause to my favorite activist, and this better be y’all favorite activist” Myers said. “Doctor Angela Davis.”

 Davis began her lecture thanking the SUNY Oswego clubs and organizations such as the Black Student Union for organizing the event. Davis started her lecture slow, calm and comedic, making jokes about Black History Month being the shortest month of the year and discussing her experiences in Black History Months throughout her lifetime.

Davis’s lecture quickened in pace, lecturing about internationalism in the 1960s and 1970s, and racism during the Vietnam War, specificaly referencing Muhammad Ali’s famous quote of never being called a slur by a “Viet Cong.” 

Davis continued by speaking about the levels of political literacy during her years of major civil rights activism, and read passages from MLK’s speech at Riverside Church in New York City where he criticised the Vietnam War. Davis compared the war to current United States invasions of the Middle East and specifically in Afghanistan. Davis is an outspoken critic of modern western imperialism and a famously vocal supporter of Palestine.

Davis lectured about colonialism and the lasting imprint of slavery, with the evidence of the impact of colonialism and imperialism being the people currently living in North and South America. She discussed the importance of Haiti’s independence and argued that Haiti is only the poorest country in the western hemisphere because of the racism and imperialism it has suffered from its settling and independence from France.

After the historical discussion, Davis lectured on capitalism and the 1%, stating that  “the bourgeois nation-state is not going to be here forever.” Davis also blamed capitalism for the current pandemic and healthcare crisis, saying that people should help people.

Davis then dug directly into institutional racism and directly pinpointed SUNY Oswego, chiding the creation of diversity and inclusion initiatives while not changing curriculum or cultures.

“Racism resides deep in the structures of institutions and the society, and this includes institutions like this university,” Davis said. “And the awareness that they are not going to change just by setting up your diversity office.”

Davis said that by promoting diversity or inclusion instead of change, it prevents the “radical reconstruction of society.”

“They want to leave hiring practices intact, they want to leave admissions practices intact, everything else except create an office of diversity,” Davis said. 

Davis argued that the police must be defunded as well, and the money reallocated to other services such as mental health. Davis said reform is a “myth” and that all struggles are entwined, that it is not just a black struggle, but a Native American struggle, a feminist struggle and a poor white struggle.

Afterwards, Davis answered questions from the audience, and met with student leaders from organizations that helped the event including the Black Student Union and Latino Student Union at a private meet-and-greet event afterwards. The Oswegonian and WTOP were also allowed inside the event, where students and professors asked questions and discussed issues with Davis. 

In a private interview with the Oswegonian and WTOP, Davis said that change must come from large groups of people coming together, but with strong leadership. Davis said that smaller groups can still enact great change at places like SUNY Oswego.

“Small groups can change the world, can change the institution,” Davis said. “You don’t necessarily end what you begin, but if you begin by challenging the organization of the institution, by challenging for example the fact that anti-racist goals are usually represented at the institution administration level as another diversity effort.”

Davis spoke again about her hesitancy against diversity initiatives and institution diversity offices like the SUNY Oswego Institute for Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Transformative Practice.

“Diversity can be good, but it can also militate against the very struggles for freedom that we want to encourage because it can mean diversity within an institution that remains exactly the same as it was before the diversity was instituted,” Davis said. “So it makes no sense to get however many numbers of people of color, of women, of queer people to get involved in the institution if the institution still functions the way it did when it excluded them. That is the contradiction and that is why we really have to challenge this dependence on diversity paradigms.”