Revolutionary,

1972

In Revolutionary Jarrell presents the Black American feminist, prison abolitionist, and activist Angela Davis in the midst of an impassioned speech. The image swirls with text: She is composed of fragments of the phrase “Black is beautiful,” her clothing comprises a quotation beginning “I have given my life to the struggle,” and the words “Revolutionary” and “Resist” radiate from her afro like a halo. Jarrell created this while Davis was wrongly imprisoned from 1970 to 1972 on charges of murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy, for which she was later acquitted. Here, she holds not a gun but a speakerphone, her voice her weapon. Once asked about whether she approved of violence, Davis scoffed, remembering her youth in Alabama where she frequently experienced racist attacks, including bombings that killed her friends: “When someone asks me about violence, it means that the person has no idea what Black people have experienced in this country.”