However, in a statement released Monday, Davis revealed she is still coming to Birmingham.
“Despite the BCRI’s regrettable decision,” she said, “I look forward to being in Birmingham in February for an alternative event organized by those who believe that the movement for civil rights in this moment must include a robust discussion of all of the injustices that surround us.”
Davis, who will turn 75 later this month, did not provide details about the February event.
After informing her of its decision, the BCRI board of directors, Davis added, “refused my requests to reveal the substantive reasons for this action.”
She later learned, however, that “my long-term support of justice for Palestine was at issue.”
“This seemed particularly unfortunate,” she said, “given that my own freedom was secured – and indeed my life was saved – by a vast international movement.
“And I have devoted much of my own activism to international solidarity and, specifically, to linking struggles in other parts of the world to U.S. grassroots campaigns against police violence, the prison industrial complex, and racism more broadly.”
“The rescinding of this invitation was thus not primarily an attack against me but rather against the spirit of the indivisibility of justice.”