In 2013, Angela Davis came to the UK on a lecture tour on the
50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech and
argued elegantly and eloquently about how such celebrations, represented as the
high point on the road to triumphal democracy, enact historical closures. That
is to say, the celebration suggests that the civil rights movement has achieved
its goals when the reverse is true – when vigilante violence is at its height, when
continuing police violence against black communities has given rise to the #Blacklivesmatter
campaign and when the prison industrial complex continues to imprison disproportionate
numbers of young black men. She argued that freedom is a constant struggle and
such commemorations must be used to highlight the continuities. From the fabric
of that argument, she pulled out another thread: that an anniversary is an opportunity
to bring to light the invisible actors of that historical moment.
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