Timeless Radical Voices: Why Their Activism Matters Today

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This edition of #SistoryLessons publishes on or near Labor Day, a holiday many US Americans only associate as the official end of summer, but let’s take a moment, in this era of entrenching authoritarianism, systemic rollback of rights, and attacks on marginalized communities, to reaffirm its origins: amplification of the the labor movement and workers' rights.

Activist figures such as Lucy Gonzalez Parsons, Sarah Parker Remond, Louise Thompson Patterson, and one of my most revered 20th and 21st-century legends, Angela Davis, remind us that resistance is rooted in connection—to history, to each other, and to justice. Let's celebrate their valor and emulate their spirit.

What Lucy Gonzalez Parsons, Angela Davis, Sarah Parker Remond, and Louise Thompson Patterson Can Teach Us About Keeping Up the Fight

Each woman we will honor this edition organized not simply against injustice, but with a vision for a future where dignity, equality, and liberation are universal and collective truths. Through their lived experience and activities, they understood how class distinctions and workers rights often intersect with gender and racial justice.

These Foremothers didn’t just disrupt oppressive systems—they constructed forward-facing pathways for a more just future. I think their activism reminds us that even in these times of extreme rollback and disillusionment, it is our resistance—rooted in solidarity, intersectional clarity, and boundless hope—that must persevere. Whether on the streets of protest, in your community circles, or (yassss!) even in your own personal learning, exploring, and growth, KEEP AT IT.

Lucy Gonzalez Parsons

In her day, Lucy Gonzalez was considered “more dangerous than a thousand rioters.” This Mexican American activist organized laborers and the houseless in 19th-century Chicago, co-founding the Industrial Workers of the World, challenging racism, capitalism, and patriarchy—making her widely feared and loathed by the anti-Communist establishment.

Born Lucía Eldine Gonzalez in the pre-Civil War 1850s, and of Indigenous, and African American descent in addition to Mexican parentage, Lucy Gonzalez Parsons transformed her life from slavery to the forefront of the labor movement. She was at the helm of major 19th century labor actions such as the first observation of May Day (1886, Chicago), and as editor of the anarchist newspaper The Alarm, she stood firm in the face of repression, forging a politics of uncompromising freedom and worker solidarity.

By today's terminology, Lucy would be known as a classic "bad ass": one of her most famous (or infamous, in the eyes of some) editorials was entitled "Dynamite! The Only Voice the Oppressors Can Understand." While the majority of her papers were destroyed in a suspicious March 7, 1942 house fire that also claimed her life, Parsons's legacy lives on through the Lucy Gonzalez Parsons Apartments, affordable housing in Chicago bearing her name—and in a relentless spirit of protest and defiance among activists in many spaces.

Reflection: What future would you fight for even if no one else believes in it?

Angela Davis, Freed and Formidable

When I was a little girl, the name "Angela Davis" inspired one to either raise their fist in the Black Power salute, or cower into a corner, quaking. From being the motivation for a global decarceration movement and inspiration for a Rolling Stones song ("Sweet Black Angel"), to becoming one of the most prominent cultural, social, political, and feminist theorists of the past two centuries, Angela Davis is one of only four living Foremothers featured in my book. I sincerely wish she could live forever.

Born in Birmingham in 1944, Angela completed her studies in the U.S. and Germany, infusing her world-view with revolutionary thought and Marxist, communist, and Black liberation politics. In the 1960s, her convictions led to her joining the Communist Party USA, an affiliation that culminated in then-Governor Ronald Reagan terminating her employment as a philosophy lecturer at UCLA.

Angela turned more fully to political activism, and was jailed in 1970 after being charged with aiding and abetting a courthouse kidnapping and murder. The backstory is that weapons registered in her name were used in a deadly Marin County incident involving three Black prisoners accused (many, including Angela, believed wrongly) of killing a prison guard. She became a fugitive, and after two months on the lam, was captured and arrested, inciting a global “Free Angela” movement (I remember seeing people wearing these buttons around New York City as an elementary school student).

After spending over a year in jail, Davis was acquitted of all charges in 1972 when the jury found her not responsible for the violence. In the ensuing decades, she has become known as an author of influential feminist liberatory and systems-interrogating (putting it lightly) tomes such as Women, Race and Class and Are Prisons Obsolete?. Now partnered with Black feminist scholar and prison abolitionist Gina Dent, Angela continues to be a celebrated voice around justice and feminism, challenging systems of oppression across gender, race, and criminal justice.

Reflection: What are you no longer willing to apologize for?

Sarah Parker Remond: Anti-Slavery Lecturer and Much More

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I had given Sarah Parker Remond a celebratory mention in one of the four Brave Sis Journey Journals, but there was not enough space in my 2023 book to include a full tribute. Here's a bit about her life and legacy.

Born a free Black woman in 1826 Salem, Sarah Parker Remond broke barriers as an abolitionist lecturer, suffragist, and physician. She began speaking out against slavery at the young age of 16, eventually traveling unaccompanied through the U.S. and Britain (imagine that courage, at that time in history, both as a woman and a Black person!) where she captivated audiences with her message of justice. She later trained and practiced as a physician, practicing in Florence, Italy, where she would remain the rest of her life.

Sarah is another unheralded she-ro whose life embodied courage, intellect, and the power of cross-border solidarity—remarkable for the early 19th century in so many ways.

Reflection: When has a change of scenery opened your path to truth?

Bonus Foremother! Louise Thompson Patterson: Vital Organizer of 20th Century Liberation

A fierce activist and educator, Louise Thompson Patterson (1901–1999) rooted her work in the radical currents of the Harlem Renaissance, labor rights, and civil rights movements.

She was a pioneer of Black feminism, as the co-founder of Sojourners for Truth and Justice. It is worth taking a moment to familiarize oneself with this radical, Black feminist civil rights organization which arose at an important "bridge moment" in U.S. racial and feminist history.

Sojourners for Truth and Justice was founded by Patterson in 1951, along with Charlotta Bass, Shirley Graham Du Bois, and Claudia Jones in response to government repression and violence against Black activists. In protesting systemic racism including Jim Crow laws, the Cold War, and other repressive policies, this alliance was a precursor to many Black Left Feminist groups of today. To grasp the span of Louise's activist life, consider that she led organizing on behalf of the Scottsboro Boys (1930s) and Angela Davis herself (1970s).

Across the decades, Louise skillfully intertwined artistry and activism—from radical theater in Harlem to defending political prisoners—leaving an enduring legacy of courage and solidarity. (Don't know about the Scottsboro Boys case? Scroll to very bottom of this edition.)

Reflection: Where do your ideas challenge not just the system—but "allies" as well?

Reflection and Action: Journal Prompts for Everyone

Thinking about Lucy Gonzales Parsons, consider: Whose legacy do you carry—and how do you honor it with truth? What do you believe is worth organizing for? Think about a job you’ve had—what would have made it more just or fair?

Considering the work of Angela Davis, ask yourself: How does radical change begin—through individuals or movements? Write about a cause you care about and what stops you from taking action.

Thinking about Sarah Parker Remond, write about: a time you considered (or actually did) entirely change "vocation" or "career" path but still held onto a earlier belief or approach that continued in your new trajectory?

A journal prompt in consideration of Louise Thompson Patterson: how do you see activism and education connecting for change?

HerStory / OurStory: Journal Prompts for Women of Color

Celebrating our legacy as women of color and thinking about Lucy Gonzalez Parsons: How do you keep dreaming in a world designed to wear you down? How has class shaped your resistance? When have you seen your history warped or whitewashed? Who taught you to agitate—and how are you honoring them? Research a labor movement led by people of color in your region.

Celebrating our legacy as women of color and thinking about Angela Davis: What systems are you confronting every day just by being yourself? Reflect on how activism has shaped your family or community.

Celebrating our legacy as women of color and thinking about Sarah Parker Remond: How have travel or diaspora shaped your perspective?

Celebrating our legacy as women of color and thinking about Louise Thompson Patterson: When have you refused to be tokenized in someone else’s “movement”?

Activated Allies: Prompts and Actions for White Friends

Taking action in honor of Lucy Gonzalez Parsons: Learn about mutual aid. Support local organizers doing grassroots work. Study labor history through women of color, and elevate them during labor celebrations. Support a workers’ rights campaign led by BIPOC organizers.

Taking action in honor of Angela Davis: Read one of Davis’s essays, speeches, or interviews and share what you learned. Note what challenges your assumptions

Taking action in honor of Sarah Parker Remond: Talk with others about global Black history, not just U.S.-based stories.

Taking action in honor of Louise Thompson Patterson: Study the writings of Black women on the Left, such as Claudia Jones. Center their labor, not just their names.

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More on Their Lives

Lucy Eldine Gonzalez Parsons (1851 – March 7, 1942) - The Goddess of Anarchy

On March 7, 1942, a fire consumed the Chicago home of Lucy Gonzalez Parsons. At 89 years old, the legendary labor organizer, radical socialist, and anarcho-communist perished in the blaze. As tragic as her death was, it must also be noted that many of her writings and historically significant artifacts were also lost forever.

Some contemporaries viewed the fire as suspicious—an erasure of a woman who, in her final years, was still regarded by authorities as dangerous. Parsons had lived a life that fused uncompromising oratory, revolutionary vision, and relentless defiance, embodying too many threats to power for her adversaries to tolerate.

Born into slavery in Virginia in 1851, Lucy was the daughter of an enslaved Black woman and, most likely, her enslaver, who later relocated the family to Waco, Texas during the Civil War. Her mixed African American, Mexican, and Native American ancestry gave her an early lived experience into the intersection of oppression and resilience that defined her later politics.

In 1871, she married Albert Parsons, a white former Confederate soldier who had become an outspoken critic of the Ku Klux Klan and an advocate for Reconstruction-era reforms. Their interracial marriage provoked outrage in Texas, where racial violence and repression were common, and the couple was forced to flee. They eventually settled in Chicago, in a neighborhood dense with German socialists, where they found a community of radicals and trade unionists.

Together, Lucy and Albert threw themselves into radicalism. In 1884, Albert co-founded the anarchist newspaper The Alarm, with Lucy writing searing editorials that denounced the wealthy elite and exhorted workers to rise up—by any means necessary, including the use of explosives. On May 1, 1886, the couple helped organize and, together with their two children, marched at the head of what became the world’s first May Day parade, rallying more than 80,000 workers across Chicago to demand an eight-hour workday.

Just days later, the labor movement was rocked by tragedy. At a protest in Chicago’s Haymarket Square, a bomb exploded, killing seven police officers and several civilians. Although Albert Parsons was not even present—some accounts place him dining with Lucy blocks away—he and seven others were accused of conspiracy. In 1887, despite little evidence, Albert was executed alongside three fellow radicals. His death transformed Lucy into both a widow and a symbol of the enduring struggle for workers’ rights.

She redoubled her activism in the years that followed, organizing picket lines, leading marches of working-class women into wealthy neighborhoods to confront the elite on their own doorsteps, and touring the U.S. and England as a fiery speaker. Her oratory, described as magnetic and uncompromising, galvanized crowds of workers and unnerved authorities who often harassed or banned her appearances.

In 1905, she was one of only two women delegates—alongside the famed Mother Jones—at the founding convention of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Despite such accolades, Lucy's reputation within radical circles was complicated. Fiercely independent and often combative, she feuded with fellow activists, which diminished her centrality in later years of the movement.

By the 1930s, Lucy Parsons was aging, blind, and impoverished, yet she remained active in Communist Party circles and continued to attend protests. At her death in 1942, Chicago police seized the remnants of her personal library and papers that had survived the fire, effectively silencing much of her intellectual legacy.

Despite efforts to erase her, Lucy Gonzalez Parsons remains an important radical voice in American history—a woman of mixed heritage who rose from slavery to international prominence, who organized across gender, race, and class, and who never wavered in her belief that workers could, and must, create a more just world.

Angela Davis (January 26, 1944 – ) - Academic, Activist, Revolutionary

The 1960s were a crucible of change in the United States: the Vietnam War, second-wave feminism, the civil rights movement, and a growing wave of radical politics collided in a storm of upheaval and transformation. Few figures embodied this moment—and carried its legacy forward—more fully than Angela Yvonne Davis.

An unapologetically radical scholar, philosopher, and activist, Angela rejected the limited promises of middle-class assimilation for Black Americans. For her, the legacies of slavery, racism, and capitalism were too great to ignore. Once branded “Public Enemy Number One” by the FBI, she is now celebrated worldwide as one of the most respected political voices of our time.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1944, Davis came of age under the harsh realities of Jim Crow segregation. Her neighborhood was nicknamed “Dynamite Hill” for the frequency of racist bombings carried out by white supremacists against Black families who dared to integrate middle-class communities. These early experiences shaped her political consciousness and deepened her lifelong commitment to justice.

As a student, Davis distinguished herself academically, winning scholarships that took her to Brandeis University, where she studied with German philosopher Herbert Marcuse. Marcuse’s belief that modern affluent society repressed freedom for everyone—rich and poor alike—left a lasting mark on her political development. Davis also studied in Frankfurt, absorbing currents of Marxism and critical theory that would later infuse her teaching and activism.

In the late 1960s, Davis emerged as both a rising academic and an outspoken radical. She joined the Black Panther Party and the Che-Lumumba Club, an all-Black branch of the Communist Party USA. Her membership, combined with her organizing for racial and economic justice, led to repeated dismissals from teaching posts, including a very public firing from UCLA in 1969 under pressure from then–Governor Ronald Reagan.

Davis entered the national spotlight in 1970, when weapons registered in her name were used in a failed attempt to free imprisoned Black activist George Jackson. The effort ended in a deadly courthouse shootout. Although she had not been present at the scene, Davis was charged with conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder. Declared a fugitive, she spent two months on the run before being captured. Her trial, which carried the possibility of a death sentence, galvanized the “Free Angela” movement worldwide. Protests, teach-ins, and rallies stretched from the U.S. to Europe, Latin America, and Africa. When she was acquitted in 1972 after 18 months in jail, it was hailed as a triumph for global solidarity and a vindication of her politics.

In the decades that followed, Davis combined scholarship with activism. She became one of the leading theorists of the prison abolition movement, insisting that mass incarceration was the modern extension of slavery and racialized oppression. Her landmark works, including Women, Race & Class (1981), Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), and Abolition. Feminism. Now. (2022, written with Gina Dent) are foundational texts in critical theory, feminist thought, and abolitionist studies.

Now in her eighties, Angela Davis continues to speak, write, and organize. Her life represents the arc of radical possibility: from “most wanted” fugitive to revered elder stateswoman of abolition and feminism. She reminds us that radical imagination, grounded in solidarity, can endure across generations and remain a guiding force for justice.

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Sarah Parker Remond (1826 – December 13, 1894) - Abolitionist, Suffragist, Physician

Sarah Parker Remond was born free in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1826, into a prosperous Black family deeply committed to abolition and education. Her parents were successful entrepreneurs who operated catering businesses and boardinghouses that welcomed leading abolitionists of the day. This environment nurtured Sarah’s early sense of justice and purpose, and she gave her first public speech against slavery at the age of sixteen.

As a young Black woman in antebellum America, Sarah faced dual barriers of racism and sexism, but she was a fighter. In one widely publicized case, she successfully sued a Boston theater in 1853 for forcibly ejecting her from her seat because of her race—a rare legal victory in that era.

But it was as a lecturer that Remond truly made her mark. She toured across the United States and later in Britain and Ireland, delivering powerful speeches that combined statistics, personal testimony, and moral urgency to condemn slavery and racial oppression. She was admired for her intellectual rigor and calm yet incisive delivery, which often contrasted with the violence of the subject matter she described.

In 1858, Redmond traveled to Britain as an official lecturer for the American Anti-Slavery Society, where she was warmly received in abolitionist and feminist circles. While abroad, she forged friendships with prominent reformers, including suffragists and advocates for women’s education, and she publicly noted the striking difference in how she was treated compared to the entrenched racism she had endured in the United States.

Remond eventually settled in Florence, Italy, where she pursued higher education—an extraordinary achievement for a Black woman in the 19th century. She studied medicine at Santa Maria Nuova Hospital and became a practicing physician, focusing on women’s and children’s health. Even in Europe, she remained committed to internationalist solidarity and was remembered as an eloquent advocate for equality until her death in 1894.

Though largely forgotten over much of the 20th century, Sarah Parker Remond’s life demonstrates the global reach of Black abolitionist feminism and the power of intellect combined with moral conviction.

Louise Thompson Patterson (1901 – August 27, 1999) - Radical Feminist, Educator, Organizer

Louise Thompson Patterson was born in Chicago in 1901 and became one of the most influential, if often overlooked, radical Black feminists of the 20th century.

After studying at the University of Chicago and the University of Southern California, she moved to New York during the Harlem Renaissance, where she immersed herself in a vibrant community of artists, intellectuals, and activists.

Initially drawn to literature and theater, Thompson believed that art could serve as a tool for social transformation. She became involved in leftist theater movements and participated in projects that combined artistry with political critique. This artistic foundation soon expanded into lifelong political activism, where she infused cultural work with a clear-eyed analysis of racial, gender, and economic oppression.

During the 1930s, Thompson Patterson deepened her engagement with radical politics. She joined the Communist Party and traveled to the Soviet Union with a group of Black artists and intellectuals, including Langston Hughes, to work on a film project highlighting racism in America. Though the film was never completed, the trip solidified her commitment to anti-capitalist and internationalist politics.

Back in the United States, she threw herself into organizing. She became a leading advocate for the Scottsboro Boys, nine Black teenagers falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama. Her activism highlighted both the racial injustice of the American legal system and the urgent need for global solidarity in the struggle against racism.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Louise helped found Sojourners for Truth and Justice, a radical Black women’s organization that boldly protested racial terror, police violence, and economic exploitation. This group placed the experiences of Black women at the center of liberation struggles, years before the term “intersectionality” would enter activist vocabulary. She was also a strong supporter of Angela Davis, linking her own generation’s battles to those of younger activists.

Throughout her life, Patterson insisted that Black women’s struggles against “triple oppression”—race, class, and gender—were essential to the broader fight for human freedom. She lived nearly a century, passing away in 1999, having witnessed and influenced generations of liberation movements.

What These Women Knew, and What We Must Remember

From the 19th-century fight for abolition to the 21st-century movement for prison abolition, with labor rights always at the epicenter, these women exemplify how intergenerational activism is always evolving but never disappears. Their lives demonstrate the power of intersectional struggle—every one of them linked race, gender, and class, forging inclusive visions that still resonate deeply today.

With radical imagination and the fervor of their convictions, they challenged the status quo and boldly reimagined justice, whether on the factory floor, in the classroom, at the picket line, or from the podium. Through their unwavering commitment, they can continue to illuminate our present and help us envision a future grounded in dignity and true collective liberation.

Postscript: The Scottsboro Case and Our Resolve in 2025

The story of the Scottsboro Boys is one of the most scurrilous examples of racial injustice in 20th century American jurisprudence. As you read about what happened nearly a century ago, consider what injustices have taken place since then, and what continues today. Is history just a vicious circle of injustice? Will remembering help us break the cycle?

It is the height (or the depth) of the Great Depression. A group of white boys and a group of Black boys are all on a freight train in Alabama, none with tickets, all looking for work. In this Jim Crow South context, the white youths try to force the Black teens out of “their” car, and a scuffle ensues The Black teens, to put it in today's parlance "whup those white boys' behinds."

Few physical altercations in which a Black youth "wins" lead to ultimate victory. The white teens not only tell authorities they had been attacked, leading to the Black boys' arrest, but also two white women join in the fray, accusing the young men (ages 12-19) of rape.

Despite there being no credible evidence of such, the Black boys face all-white juries in a four-day sham trial, with the very real plausibility of the death penalty looming. All nine are sent to jail. Some, like Haywood Patterson, Charlie Weems, Clarence Norris, and Andy Wright, receive sentences ranging from 75 to 105 years. Another, Ozie Powell, will eventually be sentenced to 20 years on an assault charge after the rape charges are dropped.

While several of the "boys" are originally sentenced to death, all escape the firing squad or gas chamber when the U.S. Supreme Court overturn their convictions in the 1932 case Powell v. Alabama, ruling they had not received adequate legal counsel, and ordering new trials.

The youngest boys (Roy Wright, Eugene Williams, Olen Montgomery, and Willie Roberson, all between the ages of 13 and 17) will be released after over six years in prison, but the last of the Scottsboro Boys will not be set free until 1950. They collectively serve over 100 years in prison for crimes they did not commit

Appeals, Release, and Enduring Trauma

Years of appeals, widespread protests, and ongoing legal battles ultimately resulted in most of the men being released or having their convictions overturned, but final exoneration and release would not come for four of the nine—Ozie Powell, Willie Roberson, Olen Montgomery, and Eugene Williams—until 1937 after charges were dropped. Haywood Patterson escaped in 1948, and Clarence Norris was paroled in 1946.

The last of the group to be freed was Andy Wright in 1950, even though he was paroled in 1944. And while freed in 1937, Ozie Powell was shot in the head by a sheriff’s deputy in January of that year during an alleged scuffle while being transported in Alabama. Powell survived the shooting but was left permanently injured.

It must be added that all nine men suffered severe emotional and physical trauma and struggled with long-term consequences of the ordeal. Roy Wright, the youngest Scottsboro Boy, died in 1959 in a murder-suicide involving his wife. Charles Weems, the oldest of the group, was sentenced to 75 years, endured abuse in prison, and was paroled after 12 years in 1943, later receiving a posthumous pardon in 2013.

Significance in 20th century history

The Scottsboro Boys case galvanized an extraordinary coalition of supporters—Black and white, North and South, radical and moderate—including the NAACP, the International Labor Defense, Black women’s clubs, and leading artists and writers who saw their struggle as symbolic of the broader fight against Jim Crow. The mass protests, legal campaigns, and activism around the case were early signals that grassroots organizing, Black radicalism, and interracial solidarity could take aim at the legal lynching and systemic racism so deeply embedded in the American South.

It was during subsequent retrials that one of the alleged sexual assault victims recanted her accusation. The Supreme Court would then mandate inclusion of African Americans on juries, leading to more fair proceedings and eventual dropped charges or reduced sentences for many of the defendants.

The case resonated far beyond the courts. It helped birth a new era of civil rights advocacy—one that was more visible, more international, and more willing to name racism in all its ugly forms. It also exposed the stark power of white supremacy and its abuse of the justice system. This legacy lingers today in wrongful convictions, racially biased policing, mass incarceration, and the struggle for real due process, with thought leader activists like Gina Dent and her partner Angela Davis among elder proponents, along with others such as Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Mariame Kaba, Dorothy E. Roberts, and Andrea Ritchie.

The reverberations of Scottsboro can be heard in every demand for justice for the wrongly accused or needlessly imprisoned. While criminal "injustice" strikes across the societal spectrum, the resonance of this history is trenchant for Black Americans. This legacy should serve as a chilling reminder and a call to action: we must keep pressing so that justice doesn't remain just an empty word but becomes a lived reality for all.

Next issue in two weeks, and we'll delve into the arts!

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