Angela Davis Lecture at Tulane

Last week, I attended a lecture by Angela Davis at Tulane. Professor Davis started mentioning Esperanza Spalding’s most recent single named “We are America” , which asks people to take a stand to support closing Guantanamo. Then, Professor Davis mentioned the Herman Wallace case and Jackie Sumell with her project about the house that Herman built. Throughout her lecture Professor Davis mentioned several historic events to refer to many issues in today’s society. She talked about the Gettysburg address, and the reconstruction era in which she mentioned there were more black people represented in the government than nowadays. Additionally, Professor Davis talked about how she thought the system was exploiting black people because they were not being provided with good health care and services, which influenced their performance and eventually their opportunities, which led them to spend time in jails. Finally, she talked about her opinion on jails. Professor Davis explained that if people had access to good health care and services they would not end up in jails. She emphasized the inefficiency of the prison system because it had been proven that during the time jails had existed the crimes had remained the same. There had not been any improvement; thus, according to Professor Davis, jails should be eradicated. I thought it was a very interesting lecture, and she definitely had many valuable points about the jail system although I do not know if I agree with her completely.