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Tuesday, October 8, 2024
Volume 163 No. 19 SERVING SAN JOSÉ STATE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1934
WWW.SJSUNEWS.COM/SPARTAN_DAILY
NATHAN WANG | CONTRIBUTOR
Shonda Goward (left) associated vice provost for Undergraduate Advising and Success, accompanies American political activist, professor and author Angela Davis (right).
Angela Davis joins Speaker Series By Saturn Williams and Charity Spicer STAFF WRITER
Hundreds of students gathered in-person on Thursday at the Student Union Ballroom to listen to feminist, professor, and activist Angela Davis speak. Davis is the latest guest invited to talk at San José State as a part of the Division of Student Affairs’ Spartan Speaker Series. The series is a regular semester program that invites influential figures in activism and education to talk about issues that concern students, according to the SJSU Student Involvement page. The former Black Panther Party affiliate’s appearance was hosted in collaboration with the César E. Chávez Community Action Center’s “Legacy Month.” This is an event series in October celebrating the history of activism on campus, according to the center’s Instagram post. “I just want to say thank you to everyone who’s here
and tell you I’m very happy to be on this campus at this time, I have a long history with San José,” Davis said. The conversation was facilitated with questions by Shonda Goward, the associate vice provost for Undergraduate Advising and Success, with dedicated time for student questions at the end of the event. Davis became a spotlighted figure advocating for Black civil rights during the ‘60s and ‘70s as an educator, anti-segregationist, prison abolitionist and Marxist, according to the National Women’s Hall of Fame. In 1970, she was placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for her involvement and advocacy for the freedom of the Soledad Brothers, who were on trial for the murder of a Soledad Correctional Training Facility guard in California, according to the Biography section of New York Public Library’s Davis (Angela) Legal Defense Collection. Davis was acquitted in San José for charges of murder,
conspiracy and kidnapping, The New York Times reported in 1972. She was accused of assisting in the takeover and shooting of a Marin County courthouse by Jonathan Jackson, the actual brother of one of the convicted Soledad Brothers, according to the same article. “A fair trial would have been no trial at all,” Davis said after her acquittal to The New York Times. During her return to SJSU Davis talked about the right of students to protest and said she stood with Palestine. “It’s not simply about what is happening within the borders of that struggle. It's about what it means for the world,” Davis said. One of the questions asked during the talk was about how to go about protesting at educational institutions. Davis said that administrators may not help out with the cause and that students have to take initiative with protesting on campus. Ada Ochuru, childhood and adolescent development
and Black women’s studies fourth year, said it was important for Davis to express this sentiment in a room full of administrators and encouraging for student activists. Ochuru said she is involved in several student organizations such as the SJSU Black Honor Society and the African Diaspora Association which gave her spaces to advertise the event to fellow students. The African Diaspora Association is an organization centered around providing a community unifying individuals with African descent. Additionally, Ochuru had dinner with Davis and talked with her about Davis’ history with the Black Panther Party in Oakland and how the area has changed since. Davis said she was fired from her position as an assistant professor of philosophy at University of California, Los Angeles for her involvement in the Communist Party USA and her “inflammatory language” when speaking out about
racial inequality. Katera Perry, a fifthyear psychology student, said as a student activist for Palestine and other liberation movements, hearing Davis’ words inspired her. “She said what needed to be said. She didn't cut any edges … she went straight to the point,” Perry said. “It was deep and it was what people needed to hear, especially for student activists on campus, just to keep being inspired.” When reflecting on her journey in higher education, Davis also highlighted advocacy work with students and said that bureaucracy should not be the end goal in the United States and globally. Davis practiced that advocacy back in Feb. 2021 when she spoke for the SJSU Human Rights Lecture Series in celebration of Black History Month and discussed Black feminism and socialism, according to the SJSU website. “I think education is really about assisting students to discover their passion … if you find something that
you’re really passionate about, something that you can stick with…it can last a lifetime,” Davis said. As someone with an extensive history being a feminist and activist, Davis touched on historical blindness, the dualities of feminism and the fostering of revolutionary thought. Nailah Smith, a first-year human factors ergonomics graduate student, said many of Davis’s statements resonated with her as a Black woman trying to bring diversity to the tech industry. “I think it’s important to have a real-life historical figure here in front of us, because it forces us to remember that history and if you don't learn your history, you're bound to repeat it … And she (Davis) said this generation has historical amnesia. That word, that little sentence, I wrote it down because that was, for me, the most incredible thing,” Smith said. Follow the Spartan Daily on Instagram @SpartanDaily
SJSU provides free bike rides to students By Anahi Herrera Villanueva STAFF WRITER
Providing students with transportation options, San José State’s free bike ride program gives students the opportunity to explore San José with a safer alternative. In collaboration with the Associated Students (A.S.) Transportation Solutions and Bay Wheels, a Lyft BikeShare program is available for on-campus students to redeem six
free bike rides per month, according to the A.S. web page. This bike share program allows for 30-minute bike rides seven days a week, 24 hours a day, according to the same website. Jenna Menifee, a second-year advertising student, said she found this program to be useful. “I used it as an alternative form of transportation to get to places in San José if I did not have a ride,” Menifee said. “I had a backup system needed
thanks to the program.” Along with this program being a backup to Menifee’s transportation, she said it brings her an overall sense of security when going around campus and surrounding areas at night. The A.S. Transportation Solution offices help ease students’ and staffs’ commute to SJSU, according to its department website. H o w e v e r, the requirement for this program is that the rides must begin in San José
and end in the area, according to the same web page from A.S. “This program has definitely been helpful,” Menifee said. “Of course, it is up to SJSU themselves to decide, but there are many students in this campus that come far from home and don't have a car or people they can rely on.” This program is currently in pilot and is exclusively for on-campus housing students, according to the Transportation
Solutions webpage. When the Spartan Daily reached out to the interim transportation demand management coordinator Adam Hall about the expansion of the program he declined to comment. Daphne Daniel, a second-year information science and data analytics, said she heard about them throughout her dorm building and housing emails. “I don’t find the program that appealing for those who live on campus, I think it's easier to walk,”
Daniel said. “Our campus and surrounding areas are small and scooters are more popular and more convenient to use than bikes.” This program receives funding from A.S. as part of the miscellaneous fee that every fulltime student is charged, according to the SJSU website.
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