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The scholar says the award from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute was rescinded because of her support for Palestinian rights.
Months ago, scholar and lesbian civil rights icon Angela Davis was announced as a recipient of an award from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute; the activist is from the Alabama city. With little explanation, the Institute revoked the award on Friday.
Davis responded to the controversy on Facebook, writing that her "long-term support of justice for Palestine" cost her the award. She added that the Institute's actions are "not primarily an attack against me but rather against the very spirit of the indivisibility of justice," The New York Times reported.
Birmingham mayor Randall Woodfin revealed that protests from the local Jewish community and their allies helped convince the Institute's board to take back the honor. The Institute said in a statement they heard from concerned individuals regarding Davis and said they now believed the longtime activist "unfortunately does not meet all of the criteria on which the award is based."
Davis, who has a long career fighting for racial and female equality and speaking out against the prison-industrial complex, is a supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (B.D.S.) movement, which advocates pressure on Israel so it withdraws from the West Bank and treats Palestinians equally under the law. Davis has compared the struggles of Palestinians with that of African-Americans.
Many have said that this is not reason enough to strip an award from Davis. Even some Jewish groups voiced support for her. "To argue that Angela Davis is unworthy of a civil rights award is beyond shameful. And to dance around the fact that it's due to her outspoken support of Palestinian rights makes it outrageous," the groups JewishVoiceforPeace tweeted.
Davis has taught subjects like Feminist Studies and Ethnic Studies at universities like Rutgers, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. She was a former Communist, but left the party in 1991. Davis was also affiliated with the Black Panther movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She was aquitted of any crimes connected to the violent takeover of a courtroom in 1970; she had purchased guns, ostensibly for defense, that were used in the hostage situation where four people died; Davis was not in the courtroom and says she had no pre-knowledge of the crime.
