Activist Angela Davis Offers Ideas For Overhaul Of Ark. Prison System

On Thursday evening, crowds of people stood in long lines and later packed into the University Theatre on the campus of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock to hear a lecture by longtime social activist, author, and educator Dr. Angela Davis.

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Credit Malcolm Glover

Angela Davis at UALR

Davis was in Little Rock to support new research efforts by members of UALR’s Institute on Race and Ethnicity. The institute has assembled a diverse group of people throughout the state who are all dedicated to making constructive changes to Arkansas’s criminal justice system.

Davis says she has supported social justice causes all her life and she is a founding member of Critical Resistance, a national organization dedicated to the dismantling of the prison industrial complex. Her lecture, “Race and Justice: The Consequences of Mass Incarceration,” focused on racial disparities and incarceration.

Davis rarely does media interviews, but following her remarks she talked with KUAR’s Malcolm Glover about her work and hopes for the country’s future.