Video: Angela Davis and the Road to Liberation

Liberation icon Angela Davis recently spoke at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, where she delivered a powerful call for political activism to wipe out racism, sexism, ableism, and society’s other ills. Best known as a longtime human-rights activist, Davis is also a committed vegan, and she made sure to highlight the connection among all forms of exploitation and oppression in her keynote address.

Davis told the packed house the following:

[S]entient beings … endure pain and torture as they are transformed into food for profit, food that generates disease in humans whose poverty compels them to rely on McDonald’s and KFC for nourishment.

Animal rights and human rights are obviously inextricably linked. Discrimination, oppression, indifference, and abuse exist only when one group believes itself superior to another—and animals experience that kind of supremacism every day as they are slaughtered for the table, baited with hooks, slammed into cages, and even dragged along for their quick walks.

Let’s be sure to stand up against injustice in any form. Because, as Davis says, “This moment may very well be the historical conjuncture we have been waiting for.”