1972
Patsy Takemoto Mink
Leveling the playing field
Title IX, the civil rights law passed
in 1972 that prevents sex discrimina-
tion in federally funded educational
institutions, owes its existence largely
to the efforts of Representative Patsy
Takemoto Mink of Hawaii. Mink, who
was rejected from more than a dozen
medical schools because she was a
woman and then faced discrimination
as a practicing lawyer, devoted her life
to advocating for gender equality and
educational reform. The first woman
of color and the first Asian- American
woman elected to the House of
Representatives, Mink served 12 terms
in Congress and said she felt a respon-
sibility not just to her constituents but
also to women across the country.
In the nearly 50 years since its pas-
sage, Title IX has been used both to
ensure that female athletes are given
equal opportunities in sports and to
protect students and staff from sexual
assault and harassment. It also shields
from retaliation those who report vio-
lations of the law. Mink was honored
after her death in 2002 when Title IX
was renamed the Patsy T. Mink Equal
Opportunity in Education Act. She was
posthumously awarded the Presidential
Medal of Freedom. —Cady Lang1971 | RADICAL THINKERANGELA DAVIS
BY IBRAM X. KENDIAn AcTivisT. An AuThor. A scholAr. An AboliTionisT.
A legend, as revered by my generation of millennials as she
is her own. She is Angela Y. Davis.
Davis opened 1971 with an American declaration of
innocence heard around the country: “I am innocent of
all charges which have been leveled against me by the state
of California.” The state, governed by Ronald Reagan, had
charged Davis with capital crimes in connection with an
armed courtroom takeover in August 1970 that left her
friend Jonathan Jackson, two inmates and a judge dead in
Marin County. Responding officers had shot these four peo-
ple. But investigators accused Davis when they traced a gun
used in the takeover to her. Davis smelled a setup and fled.
She eluded would-be captors for two months before Presi-
dent Richard Nixon congratulated the FBI on its “capture
of the dangerous terrorist Angela Davis” in October 1970.
In 1971, Davis became America’s most famous “politi-
cal prisoner” as she awaited trial. Defense committees in
the U.S. and abroad shouted at demonstrations the chant
of 1971, “Free Angela,” about the woman John Lennon
and Yoko Ono immortalized in song. The defense com-
mittees formed a broad interracial coalition of supporters
who believed Nixon’s America, not Davis, was America’s
Most Wanted. Her supporters charged that Nixon’s Amer-
ica was terrorizing, imprisoning and trying to kill the
movement, the organizations of anti racist, anti capitalist,
anti sexist and anti war activists. Their freedom struggle in
1971 became the struggle for freedom of Angela Y. Davis,
an incarcerated body Nixon’s and Reagan’s law-and-order
America wanted dead.
She was on trial for her life. Millions of progressive
Americans defended her like they were on trial for theirs.
After being acquitted of all charges in 1972, Davis moved
from defended to defender, consistently resisting the struc-
tural causes of inequity and injustice as others took the
bigoted way out and victim-blamed. For decades, she has
unflinchingly defended black women, black prisoners, the
black poor—and all women, all prisoners, all poor people—
when few Americans would. She has defended America
from the clutches of imperialism, exploitation, racism, sex-
ism, poverty and incarceration when few Americans would.
In the final analysis, Davis managed to transform Amer-
ica’s yearlong shouts of “Free Angela” in 1971 into Angela’s
lifetime of shouts of “Free America.”Kendi is the author of How to Be an AntiracistSTEINEM: JERRY ENGEL—NEW YORK POST ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES; DAVIS: HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; MINK: COURTESY GWENDOLYN MINK/PATSY TAKEMOTO MINK PAPERS, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 67