World-renowned activist and scholar Angela Davis spoke with esteemed philosopher Lucius Outlaw, Jr. at Swarthmore College on Wednesday, Nov. 20, discussing a range of topics including academic activism, critical theory, the violence in Palestine, capitalism, and the role of violence in protests. The conversation was the fifth and final installment of Swarthmore’s semester-long “Global Justice: Historic Present, Imagined Futures” program of the 2024-25 William J. Cooper Series. It drew over 1,000 live viewers across Pearson Hall Theater and the Scheuer Room, which was opened for livestreaming due to overcapacity, according to Lang Performing Arts Center “Director James Murphy.
Davis is a distinguished professor emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is widely recognized for her contributions to civil rights, feminism, and prison abolition. A key figure in the Black liberation movement, Davis has authored several influential books, including “Women, Race, and Class” and “Are Prisons Obsolete?”
Outlaw is a professor of philosophy and W. Alton Jones Chair, emeritus, at Vanderbilt University. He is a recognized pioneer of Africana philosophy and has written several notable works, including “On Race and Philosophy” and “Critical Social Theory in the Interests of Black Folk.” Outlaw has previously held teaching positions at several prestigious institutions, including Fisk University and Haverford College.
The event was opened by Assistant Professor of Philosophy Sabeen Ahmed, who began with a land acknowledgment and a discussion on the speakers’ contemporary relevance, particularly the contradiction of acknowledging settler colonialism in a nation that voted against Palestinian self-determination and vetoed a UN ceasefire resolution. She emphasized the importance of philosophy — and, by extension, the work of Davis and Outlaw — in addressing critical global conflicts, both past and present.
In email communication with The Phoenix, Ahmed shared her motivation for inviting Davis to campus as part of the “Global Justice” series: “We knew we wanted to feature someone who has thought deeply about the ways in which imperial logics are integrated and reproduced in the university. So, Angela Davis became one of this year’s ‘dream’ guests.”
Ahmed also highlighted the significant contributions that both speakers have made as philosophers of color in providing the vocabulary necessary for discussions about social justice today. She emphasized Davis’ reminder that “intersectionality is a framework of analysis, not an additive method of identity-construction,” continuing that, “It is in part because [Davis] and [Outlaw] have been such an integral part of building this lexicon that we were so excited to have them here: to remind us of where these ideas came from and why.”
Ahmed personally invited Outlaw, a former professor and mentor of hers. She expressed confidence that the two speakers would bring a vibrant and thoughtful energy to the stage, adding that they would offer a much-needed perspective during a challenging time in the struggle for Palestinian liberation, “As veterans of the Black liberation movement and longtime activist-scholars, [Davis] and [Outlaw] urged us to remember that ‘the struggle for justice’ extends over lifetimes and that, if we hope to survive it, we need to cultivate, as [Outlaw] put it, revolutionary patience.”
Outlaw began the conversation by acknowledging the long-spanning history of friendship and inspiration between Davis and himself, lasting over 50 years. He started by asking Davis how she was doing “in this historic moment,” to which she responded, “I’ve been better, but I know that how I’m feeling is a reflection of how at least half the country is feeling.” She emphasized the need to continue to engage in struggle, “regardless of our emotional states … to learn how to be sad and depressed and still fight.”
Outlaw touched on the similarities and differences between his and Davis’ work, contextualizing Davis’ activism to his work within colleges and universities. He asked her how she had sustained herself in such work for over half a century and how it could be tied to the current moment. Davis responded by emphasizing the importance of her work as a part of a broader collective, “I don’t know what it means to imagine one’s life or one’s future simply as an individual.”
Outlaw situated his next question regarding Swarthmore, introducing the presumption that people characterize colleges and universities as “not being in the real world,” concerning students’ engagement with critical issues outside campus. He counteracted this notion, describing Swarthmore and other collegiate institutions as “critical nurseries of the possibilities of democratic citizenship.” He brought this back to Davis, recognizing colleges and universities as the sites where she conducted her life’s work. Davis agreed, noting that it is also necessary to apply critical thinking to such institutions, particularly regarding the production of knowledge.
“We often think about these institutions as the only serious places in the world where knowledge is produced,” Davis said. “But in fact, knowledge is produced in a whole variety of venues … through struggles, both on the campuses and in the streets, so that the sense of this being a very special place has to be critically challenged.” She continued, saying she has learned a lot about universities through her work with prisons, where the environment challenges how knowledge is typically created and pursued. Outlaw connected this to his career in academic philosophy, which he described as “one of the most retrograde disciplines.”
“Any people who can survive across multiple generations have always had to engage in some profound critical thinking to meet the challenges to their existence.” Outlaw emphasized this perspective in Africana philosophy, explaining how the field’s basis expands what constitutes philosophizing. He describes this challenge as the foundation of his career in teaching philosophy.
Davis continued the discussion of philosophy and reflected on her experience studying critical theory with Herbert Marcuse, which she described as an interdisciplinary formation grounded in the philosophies of Marxism. She contextualized her attraction to such studies to her reality of growing up as a Black child in the Deep South, which was reciprocated by Outlaw, who was born in the same year as Davis, 1944. Concerning critical theory, Davis emphasized its reliance on investigation and interdisciplinarity and that “one can learn a great deal more [that way] than if one is ensconced inside of a discipline.”
Davis said her sense of interdisciplinarity today is slightly different, as it goes beyond bringing together various disciplines “but interrogates where else knowledge is being produced outside of the academic disciplines.” She tied this into her activism within prisons, contemplating the role they have played in the lives of people of color and the working class.
Outlaw also attributed his coming of age in the South to his work in academia, saying his way into philosophy was motivated by the conditions of life in “apartheid Mississippi.” He, too, was enthralled by Marcuse, who he said inspired him to start thinking critically, an approach that ultimately shaped his teaching at Fisk.
Davis reminisced on her time as a student at Brandeis University, where she said her awareness of the questions of justice in Israel/Palestine first emerged. She reflected that the issue was not included in social justice agendas at the time. She then brought the issue into the present, saying that it is important to know that the conversations and demonstrations taking place today have been taking place since the 1960s. “I feel this joy that finally, finally … people are recognizing that Zionism is not good for the world,” Davis said.
Outlaw added to this by exploring how to constructively engage with such complex issues. “One of the critical struggles in this country,” he remarked, “is how to preserve the space for the critical engagement.” He emphasized this importance within the context of colleges and universities, particularly concerning Vanderbilt, which, like many other institutions, has declared neutrality regarding the violence in Palestine.
“I’m trying to understand the difference between a stance of principle, neutrality, and cowardice. If you claim that a university is a place of civil discourse, that’s not a neutral position. That is affirming certain principles about what is most conducive to having discourse,” Outlaw stated. He also noted the absurdity of having students obtain prior approval from the administration to demonstrate, contrasting this with the attitudes of universities in the past. Outlaw said it was ultimately up to the students to determine “what kind of institution you would have your institution be.”
Davis connected the issue of Israel-Palestine to larger conversations on capitalism. “We live in a world where the majority of wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few people … and a bunch of those people live in the U.S. … and a bunch of those people are great supporters of Zionism and the State of Israel.” She described Israel’s role in the global political economy, highlighting its role in providing arms for conflicts all over the world.
“There are many discussions about the State of Israel and Zionism that relate to so much of the capitalist-based misery in the world,” Davis said. “What is so remarkable, about the ways in which Palestinian people have suffered and at the same time fought back,” she said, “is that they provide us with a model of not giving up … which we desperately need, particularly at this moment in history.”
The Q&A portion of the night began with a question asking Davis to speak to the story of Ruchell Magee, her codefendant from the 1970 Marin County Civic Center attacks. Davis recounted how Magee profoundly influenced her understanding of the prison system’s ties to slavery, saying he was the first person she ever encountered who had made that connection. Expressing gratitude for the question, Davis shared her perspective as “a survivor of her times,” emphasizing her responsibility to voice the experiences of those who are no longer with us, “I never imagined that I would be speaking to audiences at the age of more than 80 years old, but I have, and it’s my obligation to speak for those that were never able to make it this far.”
The next question asked the speakers if they thought violent protest was necessary in progressing movements, particularly human rights. Outlaw responded first: no. Drawing on his time with civil rights icon Reverend James Morris Lawson Jr., Outlaw explained violence as a perpetual cycle of retaliation, invoking Lawson’s principle that “violence begets violence. We have to find a way to break that cycle,” he urged.
Davis responded differently: “What I’m going to say is that I don’t know whether we are the ones who get to make that decision.” She explained that the question of violence versus nonviolence should not be asked to the afflicted but to those who have the means of inflicting violence. “Don’t ask [that] question of the Palestinian kid who throws rocks at the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) out of frustration,” Davis said, “but ask the question of the IDF.”
She cites this question about the morality of violent protest, which she says has prevented us from asking questions about how one organizes for radical and revolutionary change, as the reason we face a great societal divide. “Oftentimes, we fail to engage in the processes that allow us to communicate. We assume that these divides are unbridgeable. We assume that these differences do not permit us to engage in the kinds of conversations that might bring us together,” she said.
Another question addressed both attendees, asking them to share their ideas regarding the relationship between institutions and student voices in protest. The audience member asked specifically how to fight institutions, as a person at higher risk for discrimination, that are intentionally ignoring the voices of their students.
Davis responded that activism can manifest in many forms, stressing that not everyone faces the same repercussions for engaging in public protests. “Activism is something that we have to negotiate,” she said, “we negotiate in terms of what our capabilities — our talents are.” She emphasized the need to think collectively about activism and that one of the dangers of living in a capitalist society is that we are only valued by our individual contributions.
“What I want to suggest is that we think in a more complicated way about how we are engaging in activism based on our passions, but also based on the risks that we face and how we stand in for each other,” she responded.
Outlaw stressed that “we are individuals in networks,” urging us to consider what our involvement in activism means for others and ourselves. Outlaw reflected on this in application to his own life, when he was a freshman in college witnessing student demonstrations on campus. He described the inner conflict he faced over joining his peers and obeying the wishes of his parents, who explicitly instructed him not to get involved in protests due to the social repercussions it could bring for both him and them.
“One day, as they were marching off, I stood and watched, and listened, and cried,” he recounted. “I cried because I didn’t have the courage to disobey my parents — to put them at risk — so I had to ask myself, what can I do?” It was that experience, Outlaw reflected, that caused him to see a possibility for his life to become a teacher and a caretaker as a way to support institutions fostering change across generations.“Find your bearings,” he advised, “What risks are there? What risks are you prepared to take, when and with whom, and let your well-cultivated judgment begin to be your God.”
Ahmed acknowledged Outlaw’s impact on her own teaching, saying that it was he who taught her that “teaching is always a political act”: “[Outlaw] always been unapologetically honest about the reality of the university while simultaneously holding steadfast to the idea that everyone has something to contribute to the enterprise of critical thought,” she continued, “His teaching and mentorship have always been firmly grounded in a profound love for the potential in all of us to be better.”
Another audience member asked the speakers to elaborate on how to navigate campus movements in our current social and political era, specifically regarding institutions such as Swarthmore and the college’s role in issues such as divestment. Davis pointed out that “demonstrations are rehearsals for revolution.” She said that too much emphasis was put on the demonstrations themselves and that “we often forget that the work happens afterwards.” Davis continued, “the work is not dramatic, and as Duutschke and Marcuse said, it involves a long march through the institutions.” She urged that we think of our struggles as having a life that exceeds our own: to think about what we owe those who come after us.
“It’s often hard to juggle that sense of creating a legacy for those who are yet to come, and at the same time challenging the institution that is so responsible for so many of the problems that we’re trying to engage with,” she said. Davis concluded her response by emphasizing the need for nuance, describing this as an advantage of being at an educational institution “where you can be a part of a legacy of struggle.”
“You can express a commitment to building the institution for those who are yet to come, and at the same time, you can stand up and fight the ways in which the institution is being used today,” she added, “Try to create the capacity to think with a large canvas, both in terms of space and in terms of time, and then imagine how you and your collective will contribute to that space right now at this moment.”
Outlaw continued, prompting the audience to reflect on the structural conditions of their life as students and encouraging them to cultivate a sense of time that extends beyond their defined college years. “It’s utterly crucial for you to cultivate what an older generation helped me to understand: revolutionary patience,” he advised, “Cultivate disciplined, critically minded patience, and live there.”
Reflecting on the impact of the event, Ahmed said it was the way in which the speakers called on us to reflect on our relationship to time that stuck with her the most. “The world around which we dream, strategize, and act must be a world that we would want to exist seven generations from now.” She explained that this is why the idea of “revolutionary patience” is such a breathtaking one, as “it is the only orientation toward the temporality of struggle which will sustain us in the fight for global justice.”
Davis concluded the conversation by discussing the future of activism, calling for older generations to learn from young people and take them seriously in the fight for revolution. “It’s always young people who are at the forefront of the revolution,” she emphasized, “So those of our generation have to learn how to take you seriously … So we may say be cautious, and you may decide that you don’t want to be cautious.”
She also highlighted that the struggle for change is a collective effort, one that transcends individual generations: “We’re not the ones who really are going to teach you. What you’re going to teach yourselves, you’re going to teach us as well.”
Davis concluded her visit to campus on Thursday, Nov. 20, by attending an informal lunch conversation with students at the Parrish Admission Commons. Following the lunch, she was presented with the Peace Abbey Foundation’s Courage of Conscience Award.
