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As the book shifts from interviews to speeches and an article, Davis’s ability to skillfully weave an argument comes to the fore. This is particularly clear in the fourth selection, a speech Davis delivered at SOAS University of London in December 2013 that analyzes G4S (a private security firm) and the prison-industrial complex. She offers G4S as a prime example of the ever-expanding influence of the prison-industrial complex, or the private businesses that have taken over the job of overseeing prisons and prisoners. Observing that G4S is not only involved in prisons but also oversees schools, airports, and national borders, Davis suggests that the firm is increasingly involved in multiple dimensions of human life around the globe. New definitions of security under neoliberalism, Davis argues, have enabled G4S’s extensive reach. Taken together, these new security systems perform the protection of citizens, keeping them from uncomfortable experiences like protests, poverty, or homelessness. However, Davis argues that the focus on securing things—such as borders, institutions, and neighborhoods—widens disparities between people. Rather than creating feelings of safety, “security” generates greater insecurity for Black citizens, an insecurity upon which the prison-industrial complex can capitalize.

While mass incarceration is a particular problem in the United States, Davis argues that the demands of security pose threats everywhere, from the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, to urban schools, airplane flights, and the streets of Gaza, where the lives of Palestinians are regulated and supervised at every turn. The ways that people are labeled and subjected to forms of terror in the name of law and order, or “security,” is a recurring concern in Freedom Is a Constant Struggle. In the fourth and fifth sections, Davis draws important conclusions about the ways Black populations are policed and identified as dangerous, even before any transgression has occurred. In the case of Assata Shakur, a former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army who fled to Cuba for political asylum after being accused of terrorism, this vilification can even be revived after decades. At several points in the book, Davis deplores the fact that the FBI has once again added Shakur to its Most Wanted List, encouraging private mercenaries to hunt her down for a sizeable reward. The aim of this, Davis concludes, has as much to do with discouraging other Black activists as it does with finding and prosecuting Shakur for alleged crimes.

Read more about how the fight for freedom and against racism must be international and intersectional (Main Idea #1).

Davis writes to inspire people to make more radical demands for change. The fifth selection, a speech   entitled “Closure and Continuities” that Davis gave at Birbeck University in October of 2013, suggests that the best way to honor the work of previous activists is to continue their fights. Although there were many anniversaries to celebrate in 2013 when Davis delivered her speech, including the sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, Davis cautions her audience against the lures of closure and completion that such anniversaries offer. It is important to mark important dates, but the fight for freedom is long and hard. The universal acclaim around Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the fact that the United States elected a Black president, Davis emphasizes, sit uneasily with rising numbers of police killings of unarmed Black people. Indeed, Davis's repeated reference to “Freedom is a Constant Struggle,” a protest song popular among civil rights activists in the 1960s, underscores her belief that the work of activists is never-ending.

Read an important quote about the protest song “Freedom Is a Constant Struggle.”

The sixth section of the book is an essay originally published in The Guardian on November 1, 2014. In it, Davis seeks to pull the focus away from the powerful male agents of change often credited with leading freedom movements by centering, celebrating, and inspiring Black women, long an underrecognized or unrecognized force in the movement for Black freedom. Remembering their contributions to these movements provides a way to recognize the progress made during the Civil War or the civil rights movement while still looking ahead to the work that remains to be done.  As a feminist and an activist, Davis spotlights the concerns of these women, especially as she sees evidence that similarly under-acknowledged people are marching in Ferguson, agitating for liberation in Palestine, and demanding good schools and decent housing all over the United States. These movements draw (and drew) inspiration from similar actions around the globe and, in the present as in the past, the aim is the freedom to live with dignity. Stressing the need for solidarity with the movement for trans rights, Davis urges all people who want to advance the cause of freedom to engage in the “constant struggle” to make equality the norm.

Read an important quote about feminism.

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