'No, I can't believe this': Birmingham native and civil rights activist Angela Davis was shocked to learn that she is descended from a passenger on the Mayflower on an episode of HenryLouisGates' 'Finding Your Roots' on PBS that aired this week.
Birmingham native and civil rights activist Angela Davis, known as a part of the Black Power movement of the early 1970s, was shocked to learn that she is descended from a passenger on the Mayflower, one of the first settlers in America.
Davis’ 10th great-grandfather, tracing back through her father’s white father, Murphy Jones, was William Brewster, born in England in about 1570, Gates said.“That is a list of passengers on the Mayflower,” Gates said.“You are descended from one of the 101 people who sailed on the Mayflower,” Gates said.
“I always imagined my ancestors as the people who were enslaved,” Davis said. “It makes me even more committed to struggling for a better world.”“The American Revolution should have gone further than it did,” she said. “So many people have called those of us who try to fight against racism and who have visions of a more radical democracy as un-American.
Murphy Jones had a long relationship and multiple children with Davis’ grandmother, Mollie Spencer, who was born in 1869 in Marengo County.
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