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Although the title of the seventh section of Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, “The Truth Telling Project: Violence in America,” emphasizes the need for truth-telling, the main focus of the speech is the proper role of leaders in freedom movements. Davis delivers this speech in Missouri, two years after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, and begins by celebrating the local people who have taken the lead by organizing activists in the area. She insists that she has not come to supplant their authority but instead to learn from their passion and to offer some historical insights about the importance of activism. Just as Ferguson protesters marched all the young Black men killed by police, Davis notes that she is speaking for all people around the globe struggling for freedom. There is no need for a “traditional, recognizable Black male charismatic leader” because what is needed in the 21st century, she says, are women who can organize their communities. Davis is not suggesting that movements abandon the idea of leaders but, instead, she believes that there is ample talent in Ferguson to take up that role.

Davis also highlights the need to create space for nuanced conversations about race and racism. This means, she insists, making clear why the phrase “all lives matter” is problematic. If all lives did matter, Davis notes, it would not be necessary to assert categorically that Black lives do matter. She implores her audience to realize that, as a category, Black lives is expansive—including people of varying abilities, gender identities, class positions, and citizenships—and to remember that the aim of celebrating Black lives should be the celebration of all lives, a category that should be fully inclusive. Recognizing this, Davis argues, will make a truthful discussion of racism possible while defusing the simplistic and individualized solutions to systemic problems.

The eighth section of her book is a speech Davis gave at the University of Chicago, and it begins with Davis’s assertion that the FBI sought to make a Black woman—Assata Shakur—the face of domestic terrorism. Davis argues that this move has a larger aim, namely preventing women from identifying with feminism or taking up the challenge of organizing for change. This is why opponents of freedom try to foment internal discord, whether by trying to divide women using false binaries or by frightening them from action. In 2013, Davis identified attacks on trans women as a strategy for weakening freedom movements, arguing instead that their participation was integral to feminism’s ongoing work of freedom and inclusivity. For Davis, these concerns intersect with her life’s work—prison abolition—given the very high incarceration rate of Black trans women. Challenging her audience to embrace the unexpected, Davis shares a story of her own love of square dancing, an activity that she had long been told Black people simply didn’t do. In doing so, Davis affirms the words of feminist scholar Carol Hanisch in her essay of the same name, “The Personal is Political.” Davis promotes the idea that bringing one’s passion to activism lets possibilities emerge—be that prison abolition, the end of structural racism, or liberation for the people of Palestine.

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