Free Angela and All Political Prisoners Page #5

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is right over there,

New York City.

We were actually, very rapidly,

running out of money.

So we were staying at the Howard Johnson,

because that was the only thing

we could afford.

And I actually had a palpable sense

of the FBI closing in.

So we, in New York, started

a detailed search of everything.

We did LaGuardia and JFK

and all the commercial

parking lots in Manhattan.

Lo and behold, we got a call one morning

and they said, "We found the car. "

"Come on. Stop this nonsense now."

"No, it's in the Howard Johnson's

parking lot."

We head out for Howard Johnson's,

we talked to the guy behind the counter

and we showed him the picture.

He said, "Yeah, I checked them in. "

This is like something

Hollywood would write.

Everything was falling into place.

A couple of minutes later,

we hear the elevator door open.

And you could hear them

walking down the hallway.

I handcuffed her

before she even turned around.

She didn't react to it at all.

She was a little

taken back when I said,

"I got to lift your upper lip."

And I said, "I'm looking for that gap."

They snatched the wig off of my head.

They kept repeating, over and over again,

"Are you Angela Davis?

Are you Angela Davis?"

I did not say, "Yes, " I did not say, "No, "

I didn't say anything at all.

I only requested my telephone calls.

Black revolutionary,

Angela Davis,

appeared without her

distinctive afro hairdo,

as she was arraigned in New York City

today as a fugitive from justice.

Secretary General, Secretary Kennedy

and ladies and gentlemen,

the purpose of my coming

to the Department of Justice today

in this great hall, is to sign

the Organized Crime Bill.

I think that the actions of the FBI

in apprehending Angela Davis,

a rather remarkable story again

in the long history of remarkable stories

of apprehensions by the FBI,

is an indication that once

the federal government,

through the FBI, moves into an area,

we shall see to it that those

who engage in such terroristic acts

are brought to justice.

Free Angela Davis!

No extradition!

Free Angela Davis!

No extradition!

Free Angela Davis!

And therefore, the whole question...

People say, "Why didn't

Angela Davis give herself up?"

The question of getting a fair trial

is a real difficult and serious

problem for black Americans.

And therefore, I think she has

certainly the right to try and pick

the moment when

she can get closest to a fair trial.

The most important point

that should be remembered

is that Angela Davis

has been publicly indicted by the FBI.

She's been put on the 10 Most Wanted list.

Her picture has been

placed in all post offices,

and this has given a license to racists...

Ma'am, when she knew she was wanted,

why didn't she turn herself in?

Well, I don't know. Would you turn

yourself over to a pack of wolves?

I went to New York almost immediately.

She was arrested on October 13th,

and I think I flew out the next day.

She was in the Women's

House of Detention.

She was exhausted and gaunt and very pale.

But she was already focused on her defense

and on what needed to be done.

I was in solitary confinement

after they had placed me in the ward

for people with psychological disorders.

I had been doing all of this work on prisons,

I had been doing all this work

to free political prisoners,

but I hadn't really thought about what

it meant to be a woman behind bars.

Fania, when did you last see your sister?

I saw her last night at around 8:00 or 9:00.

You had a pretty bourgeois

and comfortable childhood,

and so did she, in Birmingham.

Can you trace the development

of someone from that kind of background

into a revolutionary and Marxist person?

I see in her life

the makings of a revolutionary.

I don't see in her life the makings

of a personal tragedy,

of a good girl gone wrong.

Her life in the South,

her experience with

white people in the North,

all that to me would go into the makings

of what she is now.

And that is a revolutionary.

And Angela's education

is now being put into practice.

And that's a raison d'etre for her education.

We challenged extradition.

We took this all the way up

to the US Supreme Court.

And so, when at about 2:00

or 3:
00 in the morning,

guards came to my cell

informing me that my attorney

wanted to speak to me about extradition,

it made sense.

But they had other plans.

I ended up being pushed down on the floor,

they got my hands handcuffed

behind my back.

And then took me outside

and placed me in a car.

I kept asking, "Where are we going?"

No one would say anything.

And this long caravan

began to drive through

the streets of New York.

I was totally shocked to discover,

in the middle of the night,

this National Guard plane

surrounded by soldiers.

And I remember saying to myself

"I had better be very careful,

"because if I so much as stumble,

"they will probably open fire on me

and that will be the end."

Angela Davis was arraigned

in the same San Rafael civic center

where last summer

a district judge was killed

in an aborted kidnap attempt.

Security precautions were extraordinary.

Each spectator carefully

searched for weapons.

There has been one bomb explosion

and innumerable bomb scares

here in the months since

the judge's murder.

Miss Davis entered the courtroom,

turned and gave

a Black Power salute to the gallery

composed mostly of newsmen,

and sat down

next to her two temporary lawyers.

Judge E. Warren McGuire

ordered a copy of the charge

delivered to her

and advised her of her rights

to an attorney and to a jury trial.

When the Attorney General arraigned me

in California after the extradition,

he indicated that he wanted

the death penalty

on each of the three charges.

So he wanted the death penalty three times.

That made me realize how serious they were.

And again, it made me realize

that it wasn't about me

because, first of all,

I couldn't be killed three times.

It was about the construction

of this imaginary enemy,

and I was the embodiment of that enemy.

- Angela must be free!

- Now!

- Angela must be free!

- Now!

We had a nice long visit with Angela.

And she's in very high spirits.

She's feeling good.

Right on.

She's feeling good because she knows

that the movement to free all

political prisoners is growing every day.

That's what makes her feel good.

As long as we have people

like you fighting to free Angela,

-he'll be free. All power to the people.

- Right on.

Right on!

Free Angela!

Free Angela! Free Angela!

Free Angela! Free Angela!

Free Angela! Free Angela!

- What do we want?

- Freedom!

- For who?

- Angela!

- When?

- Now!

We know that she is innocent,

and the entire family,

along with many other people,

will be fighting for her freedom.

We're not just sitting by letting this happen.

We'd already formed

a defense committee for Angela.

We called ourselves, "The National

United Committee to Free Angela Davis

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