Welcome and Keynote Address: Angela Davis & Alicia Garza

Session Submission Type: NWSA

Abstract

Angela Davis
Distinguished Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies, UC Santa Cruz

Angela Davis is an activist, writer, and Distinguished Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz. Her work as an educator – both at the university level and in the larger public sphere – has always emphasized the importance of building communities of struggle for economic, racial, and gender justice. She is the author of ten books, the most recent of which is entitled Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement. Having helped to popularize the notion of a “prison industrial complex,” she now urges her audiences to think seriously about the future possibility of a world without prisons and to help forge a 21st century abolitionist movement.

Alicia Garza
Special Projects Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance
Co-Founder, #BlackLivesMatter

Alicia Garza is an organizer, writer, and freedom dreamer living and working in Oakland, CA. She is the Special Projects Director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the nation's leading voice for dignity and fairness for the millions of domestic workers in the United States, most of whom are women. She is also the co-creator of #BlackLivesMatter, a national organizing project focused on combatting anti-Black state sanctioned violence. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Root 100 2016 list of African American achievers and influencers between the ages of 25 and 45, 2016 Glamour Women of the Year Award, 2016 Marie Claire New Guard Award and was featured in the Politico 50 guide to the thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics in 2015.

Sub Unit

• NWSA

Moderator

• Barbara Ransby, University of Illinois at Chicago

Presenters

• Angela Davis, University of California, Santa Cruz

• Alicia Garza, National Domestic Workers Alliance