Angela Davis: Resistance, reflection and hope in new Oakland Museum exhibit

Angela Davis admits it took her a long time to feel comfortable seeing photos of herself from the late 1960s and early 1970s, when she was one of the most famous counterculture figures in the world.

With her iconic Black Afro and powerful intelligence, Davis appeared on the cover of magazines and in news reports, political posters, artworks and on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. The scholar, radical feminist, one-time fugitive and member of the Communist and Black Panther parties had become an international symbol of resistance when she was tried, then acquitted, in connection to a Marin County courtroom shootout that left four people dead.

Now a large selection of Davis iconography populates “Angela Davis — Seize the Time,” a major new exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California that explores her life and social justice legacy. While Davis worried that her real self “could never live up to the individual forged in those images,” she says she recognizes that these images “represent the demands and aspirations of millions of people.”

In a recorded interview for the exhibition, the 78-year-old Davis recalls that traumatic time in 1970 when “all the existing powers, the president of the United States, the governor of California and the head of the FBI were all arrayed against me.” But she remains gratified by the “Free Angela” movement, which was organized in countries around the world. Its goal was to secure her freedom and to advocate for political prisoners everywhere.

“Those images are symbolic of harnessing the power of masses of people , and achieving what was considered to be impossible,” says Davis, who retired as a professor of humanities and feminist studies at UC Santa Cruz in 2008.

Many of the more than 100 political posters, news photos, sketches and other memorabilia in the OMCA exhibition come from the private collection of Oakland archivist Lisbet Tellefsen. In 2020, Tellefsen published “Seize the Time,” a 192-page book on Davis’ life and activism that became the basis for the OMCA show. Speaking at the exhibition’s Oct. 6 opening, Tellefsen and the museum’s curators explained how these artifacts don’t just reflect a certain time in Davis’ life and U.S. history but resonate with current struggles that Davis is involved in, including women’s rights and prisoner rights.

Davis herself said: “The past is never past. … On a macro level, it’s very clear that our past informs who we are and what we are, what we can aspire to in the present.”

For Davis, that “past” began in Birmingham, Alabama. Born to activist parents in 1944, she grew up in a time and place where, she said, Black people were treated as inferior. As the exhibit shows, Davis began to make news in the late 1960s, as a young assistant professor in the philosophy department at UCLA. Because she was open about her communist allegiance, then-Governor Ronald Reagan pushed for her to be fired.

Davis also had become vocal in her support of George Jackson and two other Black inmates known as the Soledad Brothers, who were charged with killing a prison guard at Soledad Prison in January 1970. Davis’ international profile grew when guns registered to her were used in an attempt to free several San Quentin prisoners at the Marin County courthouse in August 1970. Four people, including a judge, were killed in the attempted escape.

Because of that connection, Davis was charged with three capital felonies. The FBI, headed by J. Edgar Hoover, put Davis on its Most Wanted list. When she was arrested two months later, President Richard Nixon congratulated the FBI on its “capture of the dangerous terrorist Angela Davis.”

But many around the world knew the prosecution’s case was weak, with her attorney, Howard Moore, saying, “The objective of the prosecution is not just to lynch Angela but to lynch her as the symbol of the resistance.”

In the exhibition, Davis’ 1972 trial largely plays out in sketches that were drawn by courtroom artist Warren Lamm. Tellefsen explained how those sketches could have been lost to history if she hadn’t received word after Lamm’s death that the sketches had been found in a public storage locker he rented.

Tellefsen’s connection to Davis is personal. She has known Davis socially for some 40 years. Tellefsen’s partner, Ericka Huggins, also was a leader in the Black Panther Party, and she Davis also moved in the same activist circles.

Like Davis, Huggins was incarcerated for an extended period of time while awaiting trial for what was considered to be politically motivated homicide prosecution. The two women appeared together on 1971 “Free Our Sisters” poster, which Tellefsen acquired and shares as part of the exhibition.

Tellefsen also spoke about the power of such artifacts to provide the “bread crumbs” for following the narrative of a person’s life or a time in history. Tellefsen said that power became palpable when she and Huggins watched as Davis leafed through a binder holding digitized images of items in Tellefsen’s collection. Davis paused when she came across a Jet magazine interview she gave while in custody.

“I was literally watching as she was going through these moments in her life, in chronological order, and the tactile nature of turning these pages, when she stopped on some random article in which she’s being interviewed in jail,” Tellefsen said. “She had been on a hunger strike, she was looking gaunt and her hair was wild.”

Tellefsen said it could have been traumatic for Davis to be reminded of her imprisonment, but she saw the article provoke another reaction in her. Davis recalled with Huggins how the article incited “international outcry” and she appeared moved to remember the solidarity she experienced with other women in custody. She talked about how Huggins visited her in jail to “give your sisters and me a haircut.”

In her interview, Davis said that reflecting on difficult times from the past actually gives her hope, as do the younger generations who are taking up “the struggle.”

“I think my own resiliency, and the resiliency of others in my age group, has emanated from an awareness that freedom is a constant struggle,” Davis said, adding, “The metaphor of one generation standing on the shoulders of another generation really works. They are stronger, they are taller, they can see further.”

“Angela Davis — Seize The Time” continues at the Oakland Museum of California through June 11, 2023, 100 Oak Street, Oakland, https://museumca.org/