Freedom Is a Constant Struggle

This is a transcript of an email interview French author and activist Frank Barat conducted with Angela Davis throughout 2014. Davis primarily discusses the importance of collective effort in any progressive struggle. Davis views individualism, resulting from capitalism, as dangerous because it centers individual figures like Nelson Mandela or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., thereby minimizing the collective effort. Davis argues that rejecting this individualism helps recognize our own ability to be a part of a larger struggle for change.

In emphasizing the importance of collective efforts, Davis explains Black feminism as a theory and practice “demonstrating that race, gender, and class are inseparable in the social worlds we inhabit” (3). Understanding how race, gender, class, sexuality, and other factors are interconnected is important to any analysis, but so, too, is understanding the intersections between various movements or struggles that may at first glance appear to be unrelated issues. For example, Davis refers to the Palestinian struggle against Israeli repression, which she identifies as the key social justice issue of our time. She notes strong similarities between Palestinian struggle and the