Capacity crowed at Jobs with Justice event spellbound by legendary activist
By Tim Redmond
NOVEMBER 19, 2015 – Angela Davis, the legendary writer, teacher, activist, and leader, came to the Mission Cultural Center tonight to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Jobs with Justice, which seeks to connect labor and the larger community struggles.
She did not disappoint.
Davis spoke for a little more than ten minutes, and had a capacity crowd riveted.
“Economic justice is the bottom line” she said. “There can be no racial justice without economic justice. There can be no gender justice without economic justice.”
She praised the labor groups working for a $15 an hour minimum wage, but also said that “$15 is not enough.”
She explained: “Over a century ago, working people struggled for the eight-hour work day. Once we achieved that, we stopped. We should have gone for a six-hour day with no cut in pay. The work we do is supposed to enable us to live better lives, not to provide profits to capitalist corporations.”
She raised a critical question that we don’t hear much:
“Why has the prison population soared at the same time as membership in labor unions has declined?”
But she ended by saying that this is an exciting time for activists. She seemed to be talking about Black Lives Matter when she praised “a new movement against state violence that recognizes the connection between police violence in the US and military violence” around the world.
“At moments like this, we can head if a progressive direction if we do our organizing work.”
