Communist leader gives MLK Day speech at Florida State
Angela Davis, a former member of the Communist Party USA, kicked off Florida State University's week-long MLK Day celebrations Tuesday with a speech bashing President Trump.
Students waiting in line for the packed event told Campus Reform that they don't have any objections to Davis' communist sympathies, though some were less forgiving toward capitalism.
Former Communist Party USA member and prominent political activist Angela Davis appeared at Florida State University Tuesday to deliver a speech trashing the Trump administration.
Davis, speaking to a packed crowd that erupted into applause when she entered the auditorium, kicked off the start of the school’s weeklong celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr., using the opportunity to express the disdain she believes King would have had for President Trump.
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“I bet Dr. King would be turning in his grave to know that Donald Trump is the President of the United States. Who would’ve thought that 30 years after his death, we would be dishonoring him by having a white supremacist in the people’s house,” she said during the lecture.
At another point in her lecture, Davis took a shot at Trump for golfing on MLK Day, saying that “instead of answering the calls of service, he played golf.”
According to the university, the purpose of the week’s celebrations is “to bring the FSU Tallahassee communities together to reflect on the past and challenge one another to be engaged in creating social justice and advocating for the civil rights of all.”
Footage of attendees outside the event waiting to enter shows hundreds, if not thousands, of students waiting to listen to Davis, some of whom spoke with Campus Reform to express appreciation for her and her communist past.
[RELATED: Angela Davis attacks prisons, Israel in speech at GW]
One student, however, claimed that he was in support of Davis as “a civil rights activist, not as a communist,” but didn’t object to her history with the Communist Party USA, saying “everybody has the right to their own opinion.”
“The way that Marx wrote it is different than the way it’s been implemented, so I like the way Marx wrote it, not the way it’s been implemented,” another student submitted as a justification for communism’s questionable record, adding that “I hate it” when questioned on her views of capitalism.
Notably, in response to the lecture, a group of Republican students protested Davis’ talk outside the hall in an effort to show their peers “why communism is an unacceptable ideology that will not be tolerated.”
Rather than attempting to disrupt the event, however, the students arranged for their protest to end at the same time Davis was scheduled to begin speaking.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @genASanchez98
