By Tora B
Imagine having the hopes of the less fortunate hinge on your actions. Actions that place you in the national spotlight, where your gender, ethnicity, and political affiliations cast you against the establishment, even as you stand for the people. Welcome to the world of Angela Davis.
In cinéma vérité documentary style, director Shola Lynch, gives the audience a breathtaking view of Angela Davis’s truth in the film Free Angela and All Political Prisoners. Lynch had set-up raw interviews with Angela Davis speaking about her journey from student activist to infamous political prisoner and freedom fighter. Lynch accomplishes this by distilling her run through the lens of the media’s coverage of her story and how it was presented to the world at large. Lynch posits her motivation as follows:
“This is like digging in the crates, but about our stories, our history. I’m a woman – and a woman of color – and I know that we participated in making America all that it is. I want to know those stories; we should know those stories. We weren’t so passive in the creation of this country and sometimes we get a bad rap. Yes we were enslaved and then we marched, [but] our role was far more active. We are survivors, we are agents of change and I love those stories, and I think we need reminding of them of people of color and as women.”
The focal point of Free Angela and All Political Prisoners is the infamous 1971 trial. Angela Davis was arrested and charged with kidnapping, conspiracy and murder for the death of Superior Court Judge Harold Haley. Haley’s death came as part of an attempted jail break staged at the trial of the Soledad Brothers, three convicts on trial for the murder of prison guard John V. Mills. Jonathan Jackson, a 17-year-old high school student, was close friend to Angela and younger brother of Black Panther George Jackson (one of the Soledad Brothers with whom Davis fell in love with while he was in prison). Jonathan staged a raid at the Marin County Civic Center with a duffel bag full of handguns with an assault rifle, and a shotgun hidden under his coat.
Jonathan burst in the courthouse during the hearing of three black San Quentin inmates, not including his brother, George Jackson, and gave them the guns out of his duffle bag. Jonathan and the three inmates with five hostages including the judge left Marin County courthouse. In the ensuing conflict, Jonathan, the judge, two of the prisoners (not including George Jackson) were dead. The guns used in the incident were traced back to Angela Davis.
Already a controversial figure as an outspoken Communist and political activist, Davis went underground, moving from city to city once she was informed that she was placed on the FBI top 10 Most Wanted List.
Free Angela and All Political Prisoners will have you on the edge of your seat from start to finish thanks to the strength of the real life source material. The players include political leaders like President Nixon (who wanted Davis imprisoned for her communist ties) and California Governor Ronald Reagan (who fired Davis from her job as a professor at UCLA). Lynch gives the audience a powerful serving of the truth and captures the way Davis and other political prisoners struggle with the political system, and show that the power of language influences how people see the truth.
Out of 5
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