Political activist, scholar and author Angela Davis will deliver the 2015 Margaret Brent Lecture at St. Mary’s College of Maryland on Thursday, October 29, 2015 at 4 p.m. in the Michael P. O’Brien Athletics & Recreation Center Arena located at 8952 E. Fisher Road in St. Mary’s City, Maryland.
The lecture entitled, “Racial Justice, Feminism and the Prison Industrial Complex,” is sponsored by the St. Mary’s College Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program; Office of the President, Lecture & Fine Arts Committee; and Center for the Study of Democracy.
Davis is an iconic civil rights activist and social justice advocate whose work as an educator in the university and the broader public sphere has always emphasized the importance of community-building in struggles for economic, racial, and gender justice. Her recent work has focused on social problems associated with mass incarceration and the general criminalization of impoverished and minority communities. She is the author of nine books, including her most recent “The Meaning of Freedom and Other Difficult Dialogs.” Davis is Distinguished Professor Emerita of the History of Consciousness and of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
The Margaret Brent Lecture Series was established at St. Mary’s College in 1981 to honor distinguished public service among women. Margaret Brent was a single, economically self-supporting businesswoman and landowner in St. Mary’s City in the mid-1600s. She was an unofficial legal advocate and representative, organizer of the defenses of St. Mary’s City, and is best known for her request to the governor for the right to vote.