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

by Angela Y. Davis

“What is the role of student activism today, and how should students think about the relationship to the broader community and the movements that surround the campuses particularly in a time when universities are becoming increasingly elite institutions?” Certainly, and historically UCLA has been the center of a whole number of struggles that are linked to the community. I can mention my own struggle at UCLA. But I think that now students who challenge the borders of the university and the attempt to establish universities as a stronghold of neoliberal elitism, those challenges are extremely important. With the case of SJP, linking campuses to BDS all over the country has not only had the effect of strengthening the BDS movement, but has opened up possibilities for students to challenge prison privatization, and of course on many of the campuses where there’ve been efforts to develop resolutions against corporations that profit from the occupation of Palestine, there have also been struggles for resolutions against companies that profit from prison privatization. So I think that these two are in many ways symbiotically connected. And that’s one example of many.