Alabama’s Birmingham Civil Rights Institute had withdrawn an award for Angela Davis—a longtime radical political activist, author, and academic—following pressure from the Jewish community.
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Birmingham: The veteran civil rights activist Angela Davis said she was “stunned” by the decision of Alabama’s Birmingham Civil Rights Institute to revoke an award she was set to receive.
A civil rights institute in Alabama, USA, had withdrawn an award for Angela Davis—a longtime radical political activist, author, and academic—following pressure from the Jewish community, according to reports.
Black activists are upset by the decision, calling for protests and leadership changes at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
The decision reportedly came after “supporters and other concerned individuals and organizations, both inside and outside of our local community, began to make requests that we reconsider our decision,” the institute’s board said in a statement. “Upon closer examination of Ms. Davis’ statements and public record, we concluded that she, unfortunately, does not meet all of the criteria on which the award is based,” the statement read.
The institute announced in October that Davis, a Birmingham native, would receive the Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights award, calling her “one of the most globally recognized champions of human rights, giving voice to those who are powerless to speak”.
But last week, the organization reversed course and said she does not meet the criteria, in an apparent response to objections over her outspoken support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) that protests against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
“I have devoted much of my own activism to international solidarity and, specifically, to linking struggles in other parts of the world to US grassroots campaigns against police violence, the prison industrial complex, and racism more broadly,” Davis said in a statement on Monday night.
“The rescinding of this invitation and the cancellation of the event where I was scheduled to speak was thus not primarily an attack against me but rather against the very spirit of the indivisibility of justice,” she said.
The activist said she will appear at an alternative event in Birmingham in February “organized by those who believe that the movement for civil rights in this moment must include a robust discussion of all of the injustices that surround us”.
Davis, who suffered incarceration and political persecution for her support for Black liberation, grew up in Birmingham’s Dynamite Hill, a neighbourhood that got its name from the frequency of bombings and violent attacks targeting its residents by white supremacists.
Palestine Legal, an organization that provides legal advice and support for Palestinian-rights activists, said in a statement that rescinding the honour puts Davis on “a long list of scholars and activists who have been censored, fired, de-funded, defamed, harassed and targeted with frivolous litigation because of concerted efforts by the Israeli government and anti-Palestinian organizations in the U.S. to silence debate.”
The Birmingham City Council unanimously approved a resolution “recognizing the life work of Angela Davis” on Tuesday. City Councilman Steven Hoyt, who proposed the council resolution, called the institute’s move “absolutely embarrassing.”
“Everybody respects her but us. In academic communities as well as society and various groups,” Hoyt said. “I’m embarrassed. I’m embarrassed to even serve in a city that would do that.” Hoyt said Davis should be judged on the totality of her work. “We have former presidents who owned slaves, and yet do we not honour them as founding fathers of the United States of America? So where is the grace?” he said. “And I think it’s disheartening and I think it’s embarrassing that you would judge a person by a segment of their life,” he said.