Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement

Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis is a powerful reminder to anyone who cares about society that we are all interconnected no matter how some people wish we weren't. The interview with Davis in the beginning of the book was interesting and thought provoking. The speeches that make up the rest of the book inspired me to keep looking forward in the fight for justice, equality, and true liberation around the world while never forgetting the history that brought us to this point. Davis consistently demonstrates how the struggle for freedom is ongoing but worth the effort. Freedom is a Constant Struggle reminded me that history books might be written by the victor but history is what actually happened not what's in the books and that history has consequences as do the actions we choose every day.

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement is an extremely insightful book into how movements are formed globally and how we need to move away from individualism to create global movements. That we cannot and should not focus on just our own struggles, but that to create change, we must understand that people will never be free until everyone is free — and that there’s a fundamental need to make people understand that what may be happening in another part of the world can, and maybe already is, connected to us as well. This works as a great starting point for anyone who is new to nonfiction and specifically nonfiction on activism, movements and ongoing political issues since it’s a collection of interviews and essays that provide a great foundational understanding — there’s not only an index full of relevant references that you can seek out further information on, but Angela Davies also provides activists and works within the book to explore further.

Decent read, pretty repetitive, though.

4.8 🌟 Wow, Angela Davis continuously blows me away. Doing what every activist should set out to do; make their audience think. Providing intricate connections to complicated oversimplified issues that bring further context and motivation to issues we are still battling over ten years after the speeches and interviews in this book were given. Most notably she points out the importance of dismantling the individualistic mentality we have towards movements and change. Movements are complicated intersectional tumbleweeds, and they are only brought forward by the collective force of the whole. So while we love, acknowledge, and appreciate the invaluable contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King, Ida B Wells, Frederick Douglass, and even modern day Angela Davis, we cannot be blind to the global solidarity that elevates these individual voices to the change making stage.

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis, published in 2016. I first heard of Angela Davis when I was living in California and she was criticized by then Governor Ronald Reagan. This book is a collection of interviews and speeches by Davis. Read it if you want more information about why Colin Kaepernick refused to salute the flag during the playing of our national anthem. I recommend the book. Our prisons are a means of controlling people of color and also a source of profit to the prison-industrial complex. "The global prison-industrial complex is continually expanding as can be seen from the example of G4S*. Thus, one can assume that its profitability is rising. It has come to include not only public and private prisons (and public prisons, which are more privatized than one would think, are increasingly subject to the demands of profit) but also juvenile facilities, military prisons, and interrogation centers. Moreover, the most profitable sector of the private prison business is composed of immigrant detention centers. One can therefore understand why the most repressive anti-immigrant legislation in the United States was drafted by private prison companies as an undisguised attempt to maximize their profits." *GS4 operates prisons around the world and is the 2nd or 3rd largest private employer in the world after Walmart.

I've heard the name Angela Y. Davis a plot over the past five months. Being one of her most well-known works, and in light of the genocide happening in Gaza, I felt compelled to read this book. I'm glad I did. Intersectionality is something that is becoming a more prevalent part of the English lexicon. Between the interviews and her speeches, the book provides a depth and breadth of information all peoples should educate themselves on.

In a climate such as ours having this book as a reminder has been a comfort i never thought I’d find. “Everyone is familiar with the slogan “The personal is political”—not only that what we experience on a personal level has profound political implications, but that our interior lives, our emotional lives are very much informed by ideology. We ourselves often do the work of the state in and through our interior lives. What we often assume belongs most intimately to ourselves and to our emotional life has been produced elsewhere and has been recruited to do the work of racism and repression.” Bless you Angela Y. Davis, you genius.

This text is something every radical, activist, political enthusiast should read! She provides such a robust wealth of knowledge in such a coherent and logical flow in her insights. She expands on the parallels and intersectional relationships of institutions and movements in America and abroad as well as providing historical references that pose those institutions as abstractions of apartheid, slavery and racism. She deconstructs the "individual" as a destructive result of Capitalism and ultimately a dead end for social mobility. Not only does she point out the injustices but she also lays down what she believes needs to be done in this ongoing march to freedom. Remember that the personal is political and the struggle is intersectional so we must all unite for change. Loved it!

Excelente

Phenomenal dissection of intersectional resistance

This book is absolutely necessary to read. No matter what age, what situation you‘re in, this will fill you with something. if your hand is empty, grab this book; it is a tool.

My granddaughter is very happy with this book as a birthday gift

A collection of interesting essays and speeches covering a wide range of issues. A really good read and introduction to Angela Y. Davis