Civil rights activist, author and educator Angela Davis has always spoken out against America's two party system, even serving as a candidate for Vice President of the Communist Party in America during the 1980s.
However, Davis recently announced that she would be voting for Hillary Clinton in this year's presidential election, during a "Black Matters: The Futures of Black Scholarship and Activism" conference at the University of Texas at Austin.
"I am going to the polls next month and I am going to vote against Donald Trump," Davis told the audience. "I have serious problems with the other candidate, but I am not so narcissistic to say I cannot bring myself to vote for her."
Davis continued to address why this election was so important, adding: "Too much energy went into the struggle for voting rights not to go to the polls."
Davis' remarks were divisive on Twitter, with some supporting her statements and others not so much.
Voting for one or the other of America's two primary parties is something that Davis never did prior to voting for Barack Obama in 2008. She's always preferred and voiced for an independent third party led by people of color. Earlier this year, during an interview with Democracy Now's Amy Goodman, the host asked Davis is she would be endorsing a candidate. She responded with the following.
"Endorsing? I don't endorse. But let me say that, well, to be frank, I've actually never voted for one of the two-party —two major parties in a presidential election before Barack Obama. I believe in independent politics. I still think that we need a new party, a party that is grounded in labor, a party that can speak to all of the issues around racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, what is happening in the world. We don't yet have that party. And even as we participate in this electoral process, as it exists today, I think we need to be looking ahead toward a very different kind of political process. At the same time, we put pressure on whoever is running. So I'm actually more interested in helping to develop mass movements that can create the kind of pressure that will force whoever is elected or whoever becomes the candidate to move in more progressive directions."
Check out a brief clip from Davis' discussion below.
