November 15, 2022 • 32 mins
Emani Davis is the founder of The Omowale Project, working to help her community imagine and secure liberation for themselves and the collective. Emani has spent decades serving directly impacted people and running sole proprietor businesses supporting BIPOC-led nonprofit organizations.
Righteous Convictions with Jason Flom is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Righteous Convictions with Jason Flam the podcast where
I speak with people who see the wrong in the
world and are driven to make it right. Today, I'm
speaking with a remarkable woman who was literally born into
the social justice movement. Her parents met in the wake
of one of the bloodiest one day encounters between Americans
since the Civil War, the infamous Attica prison Uprising. I
(00:31):
think that Attica was definitely a moment in which people
could see that, you know that famous line, we are men,
we are not beast, and we will not be beaten
and driven as such. I think most people think of
men in prison, men and women in prison as you know,
outcasts and throwaways, And what they were saying was that
they were willing to die that day for the right
(00:52):
to be treated as human beings um and it was
a powerful declaration. Her father, Joe moo Joca Omawale, was
one of the leaders of that movement, and her mother,
Elizabeth Gaines, was a member of the legal team that
later defended him and the other Attica brothers. Growing up
with a father who was in prison for much of
her young life has driven her to be a fierce
(01:14):
advocate for the incarcerated end for their children in Monti
Davis right now on Racious Convictions. Welcome back to Racious Convictions.
(01:39):
Today's episode, I'm interviewing Superwoman. Actually, I'm going to embarrass
her right off to that she is the daughter of
an incredible man who endured, who would do it more
than almost anybody could ever imagine, the fact that he
stayed alive throughout is miracle number one. Um. But we're
(02:02):
going to get into all of that and the work
that she's doing today, which is transformative and has impacted
the lives of so many people that it's just it's
just inspiring. So anyway, and money, Welcome to Righteous Convictions.
Thanks for being here. Thank you so much for having me.
So let's let me just start with you growing up
(02:26):
as the daughter of your father. Tell us about your
earliest memories and about your father's incredible journey. So I
can't say that I remember it, but the first time
my father held me, I was six weeks old. It
was on Riker's Island. Um, And it's actually a funny
story that my mom ended up suing the New York
(02:48):
City Department of Corrections for the right to breastfeed on
Riker's Island because my dad was being held at that
moment he was fighting, which I'm sure if you looked
him up, you would see that one of his earlier cases, UM,
the year I was born was an accusation that he
had killed two New York City police officers UM in Brooklyn,
and so he was on trial for the first two
(03:09):
years of my life. So I was born a month
after the actual incident happened, and then for the first
two years of my life, my dad was on trial
in New York City, and after two hung juries and
an acquittal, he came home. So I was around two
and a half, just under three when he first came home,
and then he wasn't home long. By the time I
(03:32):
was five years old, he hadn't been involved in another
case UM, and then went underground for a year. So
when I was five, my dad was then ten most
wanted on the FBI list. He was underground for a year,
was captured when I was six years old, and then
sentenced to a hundred and seven years in the Commonwealth
of Virginia, where he would then be incarcerated for the
(03:54):
next twenty five years. UM. But you did ask about
his story, so that wasn't his first interact with the police.
My dad was one of the Attica brothers who organized
the rebellion in Um and was the Minister of Defense
for the Black Panther Party here in the New York chapter.
And so you know, he had been politicized way before
(04:15):
I was born UM. And I think much of the
early years were I don't know that I was aware
of who he was other than just daddy, but I
was made aware quite quickly by the time I was,
you know, school age, and FBI agents were following me everywhere.
We knew that we were somewhat different. Well, and let
(04:36):
me just read a little bit of his bio or
talking about the man Joemo Joca who was born Cleveland Davis.
The name came from Jomo Kenyatta, who was the leader
of the Mammo Uprising and omole as I understand, it
is your Ruba for quote, the child has come home
(04:58):
and your dad was born the son of sharecroppers in
North Carolina. Right, it's a strange sentence you even say.
But he grew up in Virginia and was you know,
imprisoned on and off, starting as a teenager for ten years.
(05:18):
And then when he came to New York. Of course,
he began going to rallies, meeting people, listening to Malcolm X,
and became connected with the Black Panthers. And I would
have paused right there, Monty. I think there's a lot
of miss understanding and mischaracterization of what and who the
Black Panthers were. Can you tell us about that? I
(05:40):
would love to, actually, because the work that I do now,
the tagline that we use is from the Black Panther
Party and one that most people don't know. But one
of the original taglines from the Panthers was served the People,
Body and Soul. And I think people focus on power
to the people and don't identify that it was all
power to all people, that the Black Panther Party UM
(06:00):
was designed as an offering much like the Omawali Project,
that it was a response to a need in a community,
in communities of color. UM. I think that one of
the misconceptions is that it was the association with black
radicals in this country is always associated with violence, as
opposed to UM identifying them as protectors of communities. And
I think one of the things that my dad always
(06:21):
made very clear and all of the brothers that I
grew up around was that, you know, they were not
violent by nature, but that they were responding to the
constant perpetration of violence in their communities. But that that
was a very small part of what they did. They
were very focused on education for children and adults. They
were very focused on healthy food for communities, access to
health care that are living conditions. UM. The the interaction
(06:45):
with the police and access to government UM supports was
like secondary to what the main focus was. The main
focus was really bringing in awareness about the needs of
black people and communities of color in this country and
um the marginalization of them overall. So your dad ultimately
became after being you know, badly beaten and put in
(07:08):
jail after being charged with the attempted robbery of a
police officer, he was eventually transferred from prison to prison,
becoming a leader of the Panthers and ending up in
the notorious Attica prison. Now that's where things really start
to spiral, right because it's we just had the fiftieth
(07:31):
anniversary of the Attica Uprising. There's this, of course, a
movie out now about it, UM which I encourage people
to watch. Tell us about Attica. Your dad's role at
Attica and how the riot affected his life and yours
and your families. So I think what's important is that
people often um focus on Attica but don't know that
(07:54):
that the issue kind of began in Auburn State Prison
shortly before Attica, in which my father and other leaders
there had organized a Black Solidarity Day event in the
prison in which they were going to stop work and
there was a whole programming and then there was kind
of a big um issue with the administration there and
they were all put in the box that day. UM
(08:15):
in Auburn. It was because of that event that those
same leaders were transferred into Attica State Prison, and very
shortly after that, once they kind of were let out
into population and started seeing the conditions in Attica, that's
what began um what we would then see as that
standoff beginning UM September ninth. And so you know, it's
(08:39):
interesting my dad really never ever wanted to talk about Attica.
We were aware of it because it's how my parents
met and because growing up on visits, one of my
favorite things to do was to rub my hands across
the inner part of my father's bicept muscle. UM I
called it gravel I didn't know until I was in
(09:01):
my twenties that that was actually buckshot, but um, the
way that it healed was almost like this very silky
smooth skin, and you could feel these little bumps under it,
and it was just part of a visit, you know.
You just want to be connected to your parents and
hold them and be held by them, and I just
love to rub that skin. It was much later that
I would find out from my mom kind of what happened.
(09:21):
I think it has deeply informed my work, because I
don't think that any of us fully understood. I think
Stanley Nelson's film comes close to depicting it, the trauma
that would have been endured by them that day, the
day of the retaking, and then the days of reprisals
that followed. But I think it's important that my father really,
although he suffered I think greatly, and I saw it
(09:42):
much later in his life, the impact of that, he
really never wanted to discuss it. I think for him
it was the equivalent of what people would think about
with Vietnam right like I feel like it's the same.
He had a very similar response as people do after war,
in which he didn't like to talk about it. Um,
he did suffer night terrors that happened. I think right
after Attica. My mom told me I was, you know,
(10:03):
not even born then. UM. And I saw it later
in his life and we talked a little bit about UM.
He would only describe the smell and that was the
only part that he shared, was like the smell that day.
And I think, you know, he was talking about the
combination of gunpowder and burning flesh. And I think one
of the things that's most important about what he wanted
(10:25):
us to hold about Attica was how many things changed
in prisons. I think people look at it so many
years later, fifty years later, and they're like, we still
have these terrible prison conditions, like what did we really accomplish?
But many people don't know that what we accomplished are
like all of the programs that are now inside of
state prisons, the fact that men and women can get
bilingual male like male and other languages, that you know,
(10:45):
access to different kind of medical care. That there are
many things that have happened that have impacted prison conditions
because of that. And also I think it has humbled
administrations to understand that they really have to be very
thoughtful about how far they push their population because they
are ruling prisons with the permission of the population. And
I think that Attica was definitely a moment in which
people could see that, you know that famous line, we
(11:08):
are men, we are not beast, and we will not
be beaten and driven as such. It was a powerful
declaration of a group of men who I think most
people think of men in prison, men and women in
prison as you know, outcasts and throwaways. And what they
were saying was that they were willing to die that
day for the right to be treated as human beings um.
And it was a powerful declaration and I think the
(11:29):
spirit of that is one that we were definitely raised
with uh and honored his contribution for his life definitely
(11:51):
righteous convictions with Jason flam is super excited and honored
to have the support of a great organization like Galaxy Gives.
Galaxy Gives lead the filanthropic efforts of the Novograds family.
They invest in organizations, campaigns, and leaders who are directly
impacted by and working to dismantle the current punitive justice system.
Galaxy Gives also builds power for the community's most harmed
(12:13):
by mass incarceration, and forges transformative solutions for responding to
that harm. They envision a society where the structural barriers
created by racism, poverty, and inequality are no more, where
instead all people have the dignity, freedom, and rights needed
to thrive. So now we get to that faithful day
(12:44):
September nine when a spontaneous uprising broke out and a
number of guards were taken hostage, and the inmates put
together a list of living conditions, improve living conditions, demands
that would seem to be pretty easy to accommodate had
the government cared at all. Right, I'm talking about religious freedom,
(13:08):
and then to male censorships, phone privileges, um and amnesty.
This is an interesting one. Amnesty and safe passage to
a quote non imperialist country for anyone who desired it.
That one. I could see the government going on, you know.
But still okay. They could have given, they could have
reached a compromise had they wanted a peaceful solution, but
they didn't want a policeful solution. Governor Rockefeller refused to
(13:33):
get involved personally. And then what happens next. While I'm
going to turn it over to you, because you obviously
know a lot more about this than I do, and
I want to learn. UM. I mean, what happened was
that there was a lot of double talk right there
was you know, folks coming in. UM. I think one
of the things that the Stanley Nelson film does well
(13:55):
is shows the fact that they had access to the
information that was being shared in the news, and so
they were having negotiators come in and kind of act
like they were willing to work with them and that
there was a process that they were going to follow,
and then they were going on on the news and
basically saying, you know, we absolutely don't care, like we're
not going to honor what they want and this is ridiculous,
(14:16):
and you know, we're going to take back the prison.
And I think, you know, many historians believe and folks
that were there believe that had they just had a
little bit more time, that they actually would have been
able to come to an agreement. That they feel that
it wasn't just the force that was brought in, but
really that the biggest problem was how quickly the government
escalated the situation there and then the just kind of
(14:37):
the rampant brutality that that was part of the take
back of the prison. Actually my father was most severely harmed.
After the shooting had stopped, so they then went back
in and went to go make sure that they had
found the people that they knew that they were looking for.
And so my dad was not you know, because he
was defense minister. And my father was actually guarding the
(14:57):
door of d Block Um, which would become part of
why he was the highest indicted person probably ever in
the history of the United States following the uprising, But
he was guarding the door, so he was never on camera. Um. However,
when the snipers began taking over the prison, he was
shot directly. They were trying to get him, and they
told him actually when they were down in the ground
(15:20):
with him, that it was because of his raincoat that
they didn't get him. That they were trying, and that
is why I felt that thing on the inside of
his arm because it kind of hit his slick or
they couldn't tell where his body was, and so dumb,
dumb bullets is what they were using. Um. And he
was shot with a rifle and it it hit between
his arm and his chest and kind of tore both
of those things open. After the overtaking, they then would
(15:41):
come in and they would shoot him I think five
or seven more times in the back, um and neck,
and they called him by name, they knew exactly who
he was, uh, and they then put him in the
dead pile. It was actually the National Guard who came
in and saved him and several other people who had
been mortally wounded. But the dead pile, let's just pause
(16:01):
on that for a second. Um. And So this operation, right,
which is something that we would grimace if we saw
it in combat, but it was carried out against well
defenseless not just prisoners but also guards, involved a level
(16:23):
of brutality that is shocking to this day. And I'm
talking about First they came in with helicopters, right, dropped
tear gas, and then say police and correction officers stormed
in with guns fired over three thousand rounds into the
haze of tear gas. Right. They didn't care who they hit,
(16:44):
obviously because and we know that they hit a lot
of guards. I mean worse than just shooting though. What
they were saying is keep your hands up and walk
towards an officer and you won't be harmed. And as
they did that, they were shot and killed. They were
they were told to surrender, and then as they did that,
they were being shot. So from the ninth of September,
(17:08):
three people were killed, including twenty nine inmates as well
as ten hostages, and then obviously four other people. Prison
guard William Quinn was badly beaten and thrown from a
second story window, and then three other prisoners were killed
early in the riot um And it was in the
(17:30):
in the aftermath that well that your mom and dad met.
So from from this chaos, death and destruction comes comes beauty.
So how did your parents meet? It's an unbelievable story.
I'd rather hear you tell it, though, I mean, it's
(17:51):
funny because there's aggravation at the beginning of it. My
mother was a new um like she I think she was,
had just graduated from Syracuse, or she may have still
been a law student, and so she was actually part
of the lawyer that she was working under, was doing
the investigations talking to the Attica brothers because they were
beginning to build this defense because not only were they beaten,
(18:13):
but obviously they were then indicted on I mean so
many charges, it's just unbelievable. And so that began this
kind of the legal defense for the Attica brothers. My
dad then would split off later and I'm sure you've
seen all that, and that's not really important. But one
of the things that was happening was that my mom
had to travel all over the state to interview other people, um,
(18:34):
to get their statements about what had happened, because afterwards
people have been you know, obviously they had separated folks
and put them in different facilities, and every place she
would go, they would say, do you have a note
or a message from Joemo? We're not going to speak
to you unless we have, um a note from Joemo.
And so here my mother is driving all over New
York State, which, as you know, you've been in these prisons,
they're all over the place there in the middle of nowhere,
(18:55):
and she's going and people refused to speak to her,
and so by the time she gets to Joemo, she's
just agitated, um, like who is he? And why do
I have to get his permission? So she goes into
that initial meeting and it's just, you know, I think
a little indignant and like, I don't know who you are,
but nobody will talk to me. And by the end
of that time, I think they were together almost four hours.
(19:15):
In that initial interview, the story, as my grandmother told it, was,
she calls me and she says, I just met the
man I'm going to marry. And as you might imagine,
my grandparents were not thrilled to know that he was
in prison, had just survived the Attica riot, and uh,
you know, but that is how they met. That wasn't
their dream for their beautiful daughter. That was not That
(19:38):
was not the dream, who had just graduated from Syracuse Law.
It was not. Um. She would then join the legal
defense team and then they would you know, that's its
history from there. Um. He didn't come home for some time,
but that's why they He comes home, they get married.
A couple of years later, I'm born, but before I
(19:58):
even could get here, he then has that interaction with
the New York City police, which you know is all related, right,
I mean, it's all related. They knew exactly who he was,
you know, all of the things, the person who he
was with, his code of his his best friend Dalu
who was with him during that shooting. Um In was
also an Attica with him. So and he was killed
(20:19):
by the police that night. UM so you know, it
followed him for sure. So the story of the shootout,
we can't closs over that either, So tell us about that,
and then I want to get We could talk all day,
but I want to get to the work that you're
doing now to help other people who are going through
(20:40):
the same types of things that you went through, is um.
I mean, there's that great saying money you know that
about the I love the people who walked through the
fires of hell had come out carrying a bucket of
water for those who left behind or whatever. I'm missing
it up it. I think that really describes your dad,
and it describes you as well. Thank you. Um. Actually,
(21:01):
the link to that, to that event in New York City,
uh in n actually is a perfect segue to our work.
So my father in in being captured. Once he was
taken into custody, the medics were forced out of the
back of the ambulance. My father was handcuffed to the
gurney in the back of the ambulance, and the police
who had responded to the event then broke every bone
(21:22):
in his face with their boots and billy clubs. UM.
And so it was actually a severe assault. We don't
really know how he survived. I actually had my mother
find the medical records for me a year almost two
years ago now, when I started dreaming about Omawali because
because of what I understood at the towards the end
of his life about a traumatic brain injury that at
(21:44):
the time was never really dealt with, and because he
was kind of talking within twelve hours and other things,
I think people really underestimated the impact that it would
have on him. But you know, he had many symptoms
of that assault for the rest of his life. He
had blurred vision, terrible terrible headaches, uh, and other things
that you know, I would have never known because he
would have never complained about. But it really did inform,
(22:08):
I think the work that I would end up doing,
because when he came home in two thousand nine, finally
after twenty five years, within twenty four hours of his release,
he was in very different shape than he had been
in the entire time we had been with him. Um
agitations like memory slippage, deep confusion, aggression. We just started
(22:29):
seeing all of these things that we had no idea
what we were looking at. What we were looking at
was early onset of of dementia, but as a result
of the brain injury from eight and so they were
not able to tell us anything about what we were
going to see because his brain was in such different
shape because it was caused by an injury, not because
it was the natural progression of age. And so I
(22:50):
would care for him, me and my family in different
ways for the next ten years, and then uh, in
the fall of seventeen, UM, my dad transitioned here in
my home. I cared for him for the last eighteen
months of his life at home, which was a gift,
you know, I promised my dad many many years ago,
after nine parole denials. I promised my dad, like, you
will die free and you will die with me. And
(23:11):
that was a promise that I was able to make him.
We converted in my dining room, which has the best
light in the house. UM, and we cared for him here,
uh until until he left his body. And I'll tell
you when you say, it's like his resilience. You know,
my dad did not know how to die, so he
went longer than almost any human can without food or water. Um.
(23:31):
Every day the nurse would be like, it's going to
be today, and my little six year old who was
helping take care of him, was like, Nope, not today.
Mom not today, and so he just kind of kept
going and that was really interesting. But you know, when
I look back at what caused the death of my father,
it was unhealed trauma. That's that's what it was. It
was emotional, it was physical, And the work of the
(23:53):
Omawali Project was really a response to honoring the fact
that there is a condition that trauma creates in the
body that ultimately creates disease and pathology, and that for me,
I just had a fury about the fact that not
only are you impacting the living conditions every day of
people of color in this country, but you are actually
(24:13):
generating disease, You are generating life without joy. Um that
there's a level of corruption of the existence of black
people in this country, that that that's being exploited by
the conditions that we live under, and I just fundamentally
reject that we're going to lose another generation to that.
(24:47):
So tell us more about the work of the Immorality Foundation,
how people can get involved, and what the Galaxy gives
fellowship means to you and to the people that you're
striving to uplift. Okay, well, first want to honor that
I took almost ten years from when I was doing
the advocacy as a child of a prisoner to doing
omer wally to like do events for nonprofits. Right, I
(25:09):
took a real break, and I think that I have
to honor that I took that break, because I don't
know that I would have been able to circle back
to do this work had I not really focused on
my own repair, because it was heavy doing the work
the way that I did it. Coming into the work
at fourteen years old in rooms with all adults. Right,
I was the youngest child ever to join the Child
(25:30):
Welfair League of America Advisory Council. I was sixteen. Um,
I was traveling all over the country, like just carrying
this charge, like that there were kids that were involved
when you were sentencing people to a million years, that
there was an impact on family and community, and I
needed to take a minute. So the Omawali Project is
mostly like we serve everyone. Absolutely, we want to be
able to work with everyone. But our focus actually is
(25:52):
folks who have committed themselves to the fight for racialized
justice in this country. Um, whether that's through the criminal
justice them or you know, any other form of race
equity or food equality or environmental justice, We don't care.
But my focus is really focusing on those who have
dedicated their life to service the way my dad did,
the way I did, the way my mom did, because
(26:13):
I think that there's a trend that we've seen many
times that I grew up. This is probably the third
or fourth wave of it in which we respond to
horrible things happening, and you know, conservative action happening by
just over funding the movement without really investing in the
actual people who have dedicated their lives to do this work,
and not really honoring that, like that inner drive, that
(26:34):
thing that I have that I just couldn't not do
this was caused by a lot of harm, Like the
same drive that makes me great at it and makes
somebody like you know, Johnny Perez or Bianca Tailik or
you know, there's so many that people that I could
name incredible folks. That same drive is rooted in people's
arm and so for us, oh Malwale is really about
(26:56):
how do we begin to nurture and nourish that harm
so that folks can do the work that they're called
to do in a way that's not retraumatizing to them
and in a way in which they actually are of
service to the communities that they want to be serving.
And so part of it is to be able to
hold philanthropy accountable, to not just be tokenizing black leadership
and overfunding them and then putting them out there on
these stages in which they don't feel permission to fall
(27:19):
apart and to manage what they're feeling inside, but also
helping folks in the movement. I had to learn, like
you first after me, right, It's like I had to
get that being a sacrificial lamb actually wasn't gonna win
this race, and that, as Tony Morrison said, the very
true function of racism is distraction. That I had had
this life that was not joyous. You know, I was
(27:41):
not a happy child. I was not a happy teenager.
I was not a happy twenty something. Um. I was
kind of always in battle with systems. I was deeply
hurting inside. And that's how my peers are. And you know,
I feel like, yes, we are called to do this
incredible work, and we are dedicated to our people, and
we deserve of to have rich, full lives in which
(28:02):
we take vacations with our loved ones and can afford
to have healthcare and can afford to see a massage
therapist or an acupuncturists, that that that this is not
supposed to be a life sentence of pain. Um, that
we really are special, right, that we've dedicated our lives
to serving others and that there should be a reward
for that in this life. And so that really is
(28:22):
the work of Oma Wally. You know, we do actual
work with the body and trauma. There's also like a
series that I do in which I help people kind
of um create systems in their lives that that support
their overall well being around rest and boundary and how
to deal with vicarious trauma and how to manage grief.
I'm a death doula by passion, and so my dad
(28:42):
was one of many people that I helped transition, my
grandmother before him, and then other folks that I've assisted,
and so you know, the ability to die with dignity
and grace and supporting families. And as we're confronting mass
death over the past two years, it's really important that
folks understand how to build a healthy relationship with death
and loss and know how to use it, you know,
in a way that kind of can generate change, not
(29:03):
to just be eaten up by it. That is beautiful
and beautifully said. And for our listeners who are inspired
to show their support, please make a donation. You can
do it through the Legal Action Center and ear market
for the Omaway Project, and we'll put all those links
in the bio just to make it easy for you.
And now, Imani Davis. We have a tradition that I
personally love here on Righteous Convictions, which is that we
(29:26):
always close the show in two ways. First of all,
it's a question. It's called the Magic one question, and
the magic one question works like this, if I had
a magic wand which I wish I did, and if
I could grant you one wish, which I wish I could,
what would that wish be? What would be your one wish?
(29:47):
If I had one wish, It's that this country would
have a different relationship with incarceration, that we would just
find an alternative to holding people in cages. Amy, that's
a good one, um, and wish here it. And then
our final segment of the show. First of all, thank
you again for being here, thank you very much for listening.
(30:07):
And we close out with something I call words of Wisdom.
It works very simply. I turned off my microphone, kick
back in my chair with my headphones on and probably
my eyes closed, and just listen for anything else you
want to share with me and our amazing audience. UM.
(30:28):
I think what I want to share with our audience
is the premise of Omer Wali and the words of
my dad. One of my father's famous quotes was when
he came home, I was three years ago, they just
turned my body loose. And I think that what I
would want people to really hold close to themselves is
(30:49):
that if a man could find freedom for himself, actualized
the feeling and experience of liberation in a cage, then
what might be possible for us out here? Um? And yeah,
that I hold onto that the fact that he was
able to experience liberation in bondage, and that what that
(31:10):
means is that we're able to experience it now. And
I know it doesn't look like that with our government
in the way that things are going, but that liberation
is an experience to be felt in the body and
one that we can actualize, and I want us to
hold onto that. Thank you for listening to Righteous Convictions
(31:39):
with Jason Flam. I'd like to thank our production team,
Connor Hall, Annie Chelsea, Jeff Kleber and Lila Robinson and
Kevin Wardis. The music in this production was supplied by
three time OSCAR nominated composer Ja Ralph. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook,
and Twitter at Lava for Good. You can also follow
me on both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason flam Right.
(32:00):
Just Convictions with Jason plowm is the production of Lava
for Good podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one
Welcome to Righteous Convictions with Jason Flam the podcast where
I speak with people who see the wrong in the
world and are driven to make it right. Today, I'm
speaking with a remarkable woman who was literally born into
the social justice movement. Her parents met in the wake
of one of the bloodiest one day encounters between Americans
since the Civil War, the infamous Attica prison Uprising. I
(00:31):
think that Attica was definitely a moment in which people
could see that, you know that famous line, we are men,
we are not beast, and we will not be beaten
and driven as such. I think most people think of
men in prison, men and women in prison as you know,
outcasts and throwaways, And what they were saying was that
they were willing to die that day for the right
(00:52):
to be treated as human beings um and it was
a powerful declaration. Her father, Joe moo Joca Omawale, was
one of the leaders of that movement, and her mother,
Elizabeth Gaines, was a member of the legal team that
later defended him and the other Attica brothers. Growing up
with a father who was in prison for much of
her young life has driven her to be a fierce
(01:14):
advocate for the incarcerated end for their children in Monti
Davis right now on Racious Convictions. Welcome back to Racious Convictions.
(01:39):
Today's episode, I'm interviewing Superwoman. Actually, I'm going to embarrass
her right off to that she is the daughter of
an incredible man who endured, who would do it more
than almost anybody could ever imagine, the fact that he
stayed alive throughout is miracle number one. Um. But we're
(02:02):
going to get into all of that and the work
that she's doing today, which is transformative and has impacted
the lives of so many people that it's just it's
just inspiring. So anyway, and money, Welcome to Righteous Convictions.
Thanks for being here. Thank you so much for having me.
So let's let me just start with you growing up
(02:26):
as the daughter of your father. Tell us about your
earliest memories and about your father's incredible journey. So I
can't say that I remember it, but the first time
my father held me, I was six weeks old. It
was on Riker's Island. Um, And it's actually a funny
story that my mom ended up suing the New York
(02:48):
City Department of Corrections for the right to breastfeed on
Riker's Island because my dad was being held at that
moment he was fighting, which I'm sure if you looked
him up, you would see that one of his earlier cases, UM,
the year I was born was an accusation that he
had killed two New York City police officers UM in Brooklyn,
and so he was on trial for the first two
(03:09):
years of my life. So I was born a month
after the actual incident happened, and then for the first
two years of my life, my dad was on trial
in New York City, and after two hung juries and
an acquittal, he came home. So I was around two
and a half, just under three when he first came home,
and then he wasn't home long. By the time I
(03:32):
was five years old, he hadn't been involved in another
case UM, and then went underground for a year. So
when I was five, my dad was then ten most
wanted on the FBI list. He was underground for a year,
was captured when I was six years old, and then
sentenced to a hundred and seven years in the Commonwealth
of Virginia, where he would then be incarcerated for the
(03:54):
next twenty five years. UM. But you did ask about
his story, so that wasn't his first interact with the police.
My dad was one of the Attica brothers who organized
the rebellion in Um and was the Minister of Defense
for the Black Panther Party here in the New York chapter.
And so you know, he had been politicized way before
(04:15):
I was born UM. And I think much of the
early years were I don't know that I was aware
of who he was other than just daddy, but I
was made aware quite quickly by the time I was,
you know, school age, and FBI agents were following me everywhere.
We knew that we were somewhat different. Well, and let
(04:36):
me just read a little bit of his bio or
talking about the man Joemo Joca who was born Cleveland Davis.
The name came from Jomo Kenyatta, who was the leader
of the Mammo Uprising and omole as I understand, it
is your Ruba for quote, the child has come home
(04:58):
and your dad was born the son of sharecroppers in
North Carolina. Right, it's a strange sentence you even say.
But he grew up in Virginia and was you know,
imprisoned on and off, starting as a teenager for ten years.
(05:18):
And then when he came to New York. Of course,
he began going to rallies, meeting people, listening to Malcolm X,
and became connected with the Black Panthers. And I would
have paused right there, Monty. I think there's a lot
of miss understanding and mischaracterization of what and who the
Black Panthers were. Can you tell us about that? I
(05:40):
would love to, actually, because the work that I do now,
the tagline that we use is from the Black Panther
Party and one that most people don't know. But one
of the original taglines from the Panthers was served the People,
Body and Soul. And I think people focus on power
to the people and don't identify that it was all
power to all people, that the Black Panther Party UM
(06:00):
was designed as an offering much like the Omawali Project,
that it was a response to a need in a community,
in communities of color. UM. I think that one of
the misconceptions is that it was the association with black
radicals in this country is always associated with violence, as
opposed to UM identifying them as protectors of communities. And
I think one of the things that my dad always
(06:21):
made very clear and all of the brothers that I
grew up around was that, you know, they were not
violent by nature, but that they were responding to the
constant perpetration of violence in their communities. But that that
was a very small part of what they did. They
were very focused on education for children and adults. They
were very focused on healthy food for communities, access to
health care that are living conditions. UM. The the interaction
(06:45):
with the police and access to government UM supports was
like secondary to what the main focus was. The main
focus was really bringing in awareness about the needs of
black people and communities of color in this country and
um the marginalization of them overall. So your dad ultimately
became after being you know, badly beaten and put in
(07:08):
jail after being charged with the attempted robbery of a
police officer, he was eventually transferred from prison to prison,
becoming a leader of the Panthers and ending up in
the notorious Attica prison. Now that's where things really start
to spiral, right because it's we just had the fiftieth
(07:31):
anniversary of the Attica Uprising. There's this, of course, a
movie out now about it, UM which I encourage people
to watch. Tell us about Attica. Your dad's role at
Attica and how the riot affected his life and yours
and your families. So I think what's important is that
people often um focus on Attica but don't know that
(07:54):
that the issue kind of began in Auburn State Prison
shortly before Attica, in which my father and other leaders
there had organized a Black Solidarity Day event in the
prison in which they were going to stop work and
there was a whole programming and then there was kind
of a big um issue with the administration there and
they were all put in the box that day. UM
(08:15):
in Auburn. It was because of that event that those
same leaders were transferred into Attica State Prison, and very
shortly after that, once they kind of were let out
into population and started seeing the conditions in Attica, that's
what began um what we would then see as that
standoff beginning UM September ninth. And so you know, it's
(08:39):
interesting my dad really never ever wanted to talk about Attica.
We were aware of it because it's how my parents
met and because growing up on visits, one of my
favorite things to do was to rub my hands across
the inner part of my father's bicept muscle. UM I
called it gravel I didn't know until I was in
(09:01):
my twenties that that was actually buckshot, but um, the
way that it healed was almost like this very silky
smooth skin, and you could feel these little bumps under it,
and it was just part of a visit, you know.
You just want to be connected to your parents and
hold them and be held by them, and I just
love to rub that skin. It was much later that
I would find out from my mom kind of what happened.
(09:21):
I think it has deeply informed my work, because I
don't think that any of us fully understood. I think
Stanley Nelson's film comes close to depicting it, the trauma
that would have been endured by them that day, the
day of the retaking, and then the days of reprisals
that followed. But I think it's important that my father really,
although he suffered I think greatly, and I saw it
(09:42):
much later in his life, the impact of that, he
really never wanted to discuss it. I think for him
it was the equivalent of what people would think about
with Vietnam right like I feel like it's the same.
He had a very similar response as people do after war,
in which he didn't like to talk about it. Um,
he did suffer night terrors that happened. I think right
after Attica. My mom told me I was, you know,
(10:03):
not even born then. UM. And I saw it later
in his life and we talked a little bit about UM.
He would only describe the smell and that was the
only part that he shared, was like the smell that day.
And I think, you know, he was talking about the
combination of gunpowder and burning flesh. And I think one
of the things that's most important about what he wanted
(10:25):
us to hold about Attica was how many things changed
in prisons. I think people look at it so many
years later, fifty years later, and they're like, we still
have these terrible prison conditions, like what did we really accomplish?
But many people don't know that what we accomplished are
like all of the programs that are now inside of
state prisons, the fact that men and women can get
bilingual male like male and other languages, that you know,
(10:45):
access to different kind of medical care. That there are
many things that have happened that have impacted prison conditions
because of that. And also I think it has humbled
administrations to understand that they really have to be very
thoughtful about how far they push their population because they
are ruling prisons with the permission of the population. And
I think that Attica was definitely a moment in which
people could see that, you know that famous line, we
(11:08):
are men, we are not beast, and we will not
be beaten and driven as such. It was a powerful
declaration of a group of men who I think most
people think of men in prison, men and women in
prison as you know, outcasts and throwaways. And what they
were saying was that they were willing to die that
day for the right to be treated as human beings um.
And it was a powerful declaration and I think the
(11:29):
spirit of that is one that we were definitely raised
with uh and honored his contribution for his life definitely
(11:51):
righteous convictions with Jason flam is super excited and honored
to have the support of a great organization like Galaxy Gives.
Galaxy Gives lead the filanthropic efforts of the Novograds family.
They invest in organizations, campaigns, and leaders who are directly
impacted by and working to dismantle the current punitive justice system.
Galaxy Gives also builds power for the community's most harmed
(12:13):
by mass incarceration, and forges transformative solutions for responding to
that harm. They envision a society where the structural barriers
created by racism, poverty, and inequality are no more, where
instead all people have the dignity, freedom, and rights needed
to thrive. So now we get to that faithful day
(12:44):
September nine when a spontaneous uprising broke out and a
number of guards were taken hostage, and the inmates put
together a list of living conditions, improve living conditions, demands
that would seem to be pretty easy to accommodate had
the government cared at all. Right, I'm talking about religious freedom,
(13:08):
and then to male censorships, phone privileges, um and amnesty.
This is an interesting one. Amnesty and safe passage to
a quote non imperialist country for anyone who desired it.
That one. I could see the government going on, you know.
But still okay. They could have given, they could have
reached a compromise had they wanted a peaceful solution, but
they didn't want a policeful solution. Governor Rockefeller refused to
(13:33):
get involved personally. And then what happens next. While I'm
going to turn it over to you, because you obviously
know a lot more about this than I do, and
I want to learn. UM. I mean, what happened was
that there was a lot of double talk right there
was you know, folks coming in. UM. I think one
of the things that the Stanley Nelson film does well
(13:55):
is shows the fact that they had access to the
information that was being shared in the news, and so
they were having negotiators come in and kind of act
like they were willing to work with them and that
there was a process that they were going to follow,
and then they were going on on the news and
basically saying, you know, we absolutely don't care, like we're
not going to honor what they want and this is ridiculous,
(14:16):
and you know, we're going to take back the prison.
And I think, you know, many historians believe and folks
that were there believe that had they just had a
little bit more time, that they actually would have been
able to come to an agreement. That they feel that
it wasn't just the force that was brought in, but
really that the biggest problem was how quickly the government
escalated the situation there and then the just kind of
(14:37):
the rampant brutality that that was part of the take
back of the prison. Actually my father was most severely harmed.
After the shooting had stopped, so they then went back
in and went to go make sure that they had
found the people that they knew that they were looking for.
And so my dad was not you know, because he
was defense minister. And my father was actually guarding the
(14:57):
door of d Block Um, which would become part of
why he was the highest indicted person probably ever in
the history of the United States following the uprising, But
he was guarding the door, so he was never on camera. Um. However,
when the snipers began taking over the prison, he was
shot directly. They were trying to get him, and they
told him actually when they were down in the ground
(15:20):
with him, that it was because of his raincoat that
they didn't get him. That they were trying, and that
is why I felt that thing on the inside of
his arm because it kind of hit his slick or
they couldn't tell where his body was, and so dumb,
dumb bullets is what they were using. Um. And he
was shot with a rifle and it it hit between
his arm and his chest and kind of tore both
of those things open. After the overtaking, they then would
(15:41):
come in and they would shoot him I think five
or seven more times in the back, um and neck,
and they called him by name, they knew exactly who
he was, uh, and they then put him in the
dead pile. It was actually the National Guard who came
in and saved him and several other people who had
been mortally wounded. But the dead pile, let's just pause
(16:01):
on that for a second. Um. And So this operation, right,
which is something that we would grimace if we saw
it in combat, but it was carried out against well
defenseless not just prisoners but also guards, involved a level
(16:23):
of brutality that is shocking to this day. And I'm
talking about First they came in with helicopters, right, dropped
tear gas, and then say police and correction officers stormed
in with guns fired over three thousand rounds into the
haze of tear gas. Right. They didn't care who they hit,
(16:44):
obviously because and we know that they hit a lot
of guards. I mean worse than just shooting though. What
they were saying is keep your hands up and walk
towards an officer and you won't be harmed. And as
they did that, they were shot and killed. They were
they were told to surrender, and then as they did that,
they were being shot. So from the ninth of September,
(17:08):
three people were killed, including twenty nine inmates as well
as ten hostages, and then obviously four other people. Prison
guard William Quinn was badly beaten and thrown from a
second story window, and then three other prisoners were killed
early in the riot um And it was in the
(17:30):
in the aftermath that well that your mom and dad met.
So from from this chaos, death and destruction comes comes beauty.
So how did your parents meet? It's an unbelievable story.
I'd rather hear you tell it, though, I mean, it's
(17:51):
funny because there's aggravation at the beginning of it. My
mother was a new um like she I think she was,
had just graduated from Syracuse, or she may have still
been a law student, and so she was actually part
of the lawyer that she was working under, was doing
the investigations talking to the Attica brothers because they were
beginning to build this defense because not only were they beaten,
(18:13):
but obviously they were then indicted on I mean so
many charges, it's just unbelievable. And so that began this
kind of the legal defense for the Attica brothers. My
dad then would split off later and I'm sure you've
seen all that, and that's not really important. But one
of the things that was happening was that my mom
had to travel all over the state to interview other people, um,
(18:34):
to get their statements about what had happened, because afterwards
people have been you know, obviously they had separated folks
and put them in different facilities, and every place she
would go, they would say, do you have a note
or a message from Joemo? We're not going to speak
to you unless we have, um a note from Joemo.
And so here my mother is driving all over New
York State, which, as you know, you've been in these prisons,
they're all over the place there in the middle of nowhere,
(18:55):
and she's going and people refused to speak to her,
and so by the time she gets to Joemo, she's
just agitated, um, like who is he? And why do
I have to get his permission? So she goes into
that initial meeting and it's just, you know, I think
a little indignant and like, I don't know who you are,
but nobody will talk to me. And by the end
of that time, I think they were together almost four hours.
(19:15):
In that initial interview, the story, as my grandmother told it, was,
she calls me and she says, I just met the
man I'm going to marry. And as you might imagine,
my grandparents were not thrilled to know that he was
in prison, had just survived the Attica riot, and uh,
you know, but that is how they met. That wasn't
their dream for their beautiful daughter. That was not That
(19:38):
was not the dream, who had just graduated from Syracuse Law.
It was not. Um. She would then join the legal
defense team and then they would you know, that's its
history from there. Um. He didn't come home for some time,
but that's why they He comes home, they get married.
A couple of years later, I'm born, but before I
(19:58):
even could get here, he then has that interaction with
the New York City police, which you know is all related, right,
I mean, it's all related. They knew exactly who he was,
you know, all of the things, the person who he
was with, his code of his his best friend Dalu
who was with him during that shooting. Um In was
also an Attica with him. So and he was killed
(20:19):
by the police that night. UM so you know, it
followed him for sure. So the story of the shootout,
we can't closs over that either, So tell us about that,
and then I want to get We could talk all day,
but I want to get to the work that you're
doing now to help other people who are going through
(20:40):
the same types of things that you went through, is um.
I mean, there's that great saying money you know that
about the I love the people who walked through the
fires of hell had come out carrying a bucket of
water for those who left behind or whatever. I'm missing
it up it. I think that really describes your dad,
and it describes you as well. Thank you. Um. Actually,
(21:01):
the link to that, to that event in New York City,
uh in n actually is a perfect segue to our work.
So my father in in being captured. Once he was
taken into custody, the medics were forced out of the
back of the ambulance. My father was handcuffed to the
gurney in the back of the ambulance, and the police
who had responded to the event then broke every bone
(21:22):
in his face with their boots and billy clubs. UM.
And so it was actually a severe assault. We don't
really know how he survived. I actually had my mother
find the medical records for me a year almost two
years ago now, when I started dreaming about Omawali because
because of what I understood at the towards the end
of his life about a traumatic brain injury that at
(21:44):
the time was never really dealt with, and because he
was kind of talking within twelve hours and other things,
I think people really underestimated the impact that it would
have on him. But you know, he had many symptoms
of that assault for the rest of his life. He
had blurred vision, terrible terrible headaches, uh, and other things
that you know, I would have never known because he
would have never complained about. But it really did inform,
(22:08):
I think the work that I would end up doing,
because when he came home in two thousand nine, finally
after twenty five years, within twenty four hours of his release,
he was in very different shape than he had been
in the entire time we had been with him. Um
agitations like memory slippage, deep confusion, aggression. We just started
(22:29):
seeing all of these things that we had no idea
what we were looking at. What we were looking at
was early onset of of dementia, but as a result
of the brain injury from eight and so they were
not able to tell us anything about what we were
going to see because his brain was in such different
shape because it was caused by an injury, not because
it was the natural progression of age. And so I
(22:50):
would care for him, me and my family in different
ways for the next ten years, and then uh, in
the fall of seventeen, UM, my dad transitioned here in
my home. I cared for him for the last eighteen
months of his life at home, which was a gift,
you know, I promised my dad many many years ago,
after nine parole denials. I promised my dad, like, you
will die free and you will die with me. And
(23:11):
that was a promise that I was able to make him.
We converted in my dining room, which has the best
light in the house. UM, and we cared for him here,
uh until until he left his body. And I'll tell
you when you say, it's like his resilience. You know,
my dad did not know how to die, so he
went longer than almost any human can without food or water. Um.
(23:31):
Every day the nurse would be like, it's going to
be today, and my little six year old who was
helping take care of him, was like, Nope, not today.
Mom not today, and so he just kind of kept
going and that was really interesting. But you know, when
I look back at what caused the death of my father,
it was unhealed trauma. That's that's what it was. It
was emotional, it was physical, And the work of the
(23:53):
Omawali Project was really a response to honoring the fact
that there is a condition that trauma creates in the
body that ultimately creates disease and pathology, and that for me,
I just had a fury about the fact that not
only are you impacting the living conditions every day of
people of color in this country, but you are actually
(24:13):
generating disease, You are generating life without joy. Um that
there's a level of corruption of the existence of black
people in this country, that that that's being exploited by
the conditions that we live under, and I just fundamentally
reject that we're going to lose another generation to that.
(24:47):
So tell us more about the work of the Immorality Foundation,
how people can get involved, and what the Galaxy gives
fellowship means to you and to the people that you're
striving to uplift. Okay, well, first want to honor that
I took almost ten years from when I was doing
the advocacy as a child of a prisoner to doing
omer wally to like do events for nonprofits. Right, I
(25:09):
took a real break, and I think that I have
to honor that I took that break, because I don't
know that I would have been able to circle back
to do this work had I not really focused on
my own repair, because it was heavy doing the work
the way that I did it. Coming into the work
at fourteen years old in rooms with all adults. Right,
I was the youngest child ever to join the Child
(25:30):
Welfair League of America Advisory Council. I was sixteen. Um,
I was traveling all over the country, like just carrying
this charge, like that there were kids that were involved
when you were sentencing people to a million years, that
there was an impact on family and community, and I
needed to take a minute. So the Omawali Project is
mostly like we serve everyone. Absolutely, we want to be
able to work with everyone. But our focus actually is
(25:52):
folks who have committed themselves to the fight for racialized
justice in this country. Um, whether that's through the criminal
justice them or you know, any other form of race
equity or food equality or environmental justice, We don't care.
But my focus is really focusing on those who have
dedicated their life to service the way my dad did,
the way I did, the way my mom did, because
(26:13):
I think that there's a trend that we've seen many
times that I grew up. This is probably the third
or fourth wave of it in which we respond to
horrible things happening, and you know, conservative action happening by
just over funding the movement without really investing in the
actual people who have dedicated their lives to do this work,
and not really honoring that, like that inner drive, that
(26:34):
thing that I have that I just couldn't not do
this was caused by a lot of harm, Like the
same drive that makes me great at it and makes
somebody like you know, Johnny Perez or Bianca Tailik or
you know, there's so many that people that I could
name incredible folks. That same drive is rooted in people's
arm and so for us, oh Malwale is really about
(26:56):
how do we begin to nurture and nourish that harm
so that folks can do the work that they're called
to do in a way that's not retraumatizing to them
and in a way in which they actually are of
service to the communities that they want to be serving.
And so part of it is to be able to
hold philanthropy accountable, to not just be tokenizing black leadership
and overfunding them and then putting them out there on
these stages in which they don't feel permission to fall
(27:19):
apart and to manage what they're feeling inside, but also
helping folks in the movement. I had to learn, like
you first after me, right, It's like I had to
get that being a sacrificial lamb actually wasn't gonna win
this race, and that, as Tony Morrison said, the very
true function of racism is distraction. That I had had
this life that was not joyous. You know, I was
(27:41):
not a happy child. I was not a happy teenager.
I was not a happy twenty something. Um. I was
kind of always in battle with systems. I was deeply
hurting inside. And that's how my peers are. And you know,
I feel like, yes, we are called to do this
incredible work, and we are dedicated to our people, and
we deserve of to have rich, full lives in which
(28:02):
we take vacations with our loved ones and can afford
to have healthcare and can afford to see a massage
therapist or an acupuncturists, that that that this is not
supposed to be a life sentence of pain. Um, that
we really are special, right, that we've dedicated our lives
to serving others and that there should be a reward
for that in this life. And so that really is
(28:22):
the work of Oma Wally. You know, we do actual
work with the body and trauma. There's also like a
series that I do in which I help people kind
of um create systems in their lives that that support
their overall well being around rest and boundary and how
to deal with vicarious trauma and how to manage grief.
I'm a death doula by passion, and so my dad
(28:42):
was one of many people that I helped transition, my
grandmother before him, and then other folks that I've assisted,
and so you know, the ability to die with dignity
and grace and supporting families. And as we're confronting mass
death over the past two years, it's really important that
folks understand how to build a healthy relationship with death
and loss and know how to use it, you know,
in a way that kind of can generate change, not
(29:03):
to just be eaten up by it. That is beautiful
and beautifully said. And for our listeners who are inspired
to show their support, please make a donation. You can
do it through the Legal Action Center and ear market
for the Omaway Project, and we'll put all those links
in the bio just to make it easy for you.
And now, Imani Davis. We have a tradition that I
personally love here on Righteous Convictions, which is that we
(29:26):
always close the show in two ways. First of all,
it's a question. It's called the Magic one question, and
the magic one question works like this, if I had
a magic wand which I wish I did, and if
I could grant you one wish, which I wish I could,
what would that wish be? What would be your one wish?
(29:47):
If I had one wish, It's that this country would
have a different relationship with incarceration, that we would just
find an alternative to holding people in cages. Amy, that's
a good one, um, and wish here it. And then
our final segment of the show. First of all, thank
you again for being here, thank you very much for listening.
(30:07):
And we close out with something I call words of Wisdom.
It works very simply. I turned off my microphone, kick
back in my chair with my headphones on and probably
my eyes closed, and just listen for anything else you
want to share with me and our amazing audience. UM.
(30:28):
I think what I want to share with our audience
is the premise of Omer Wali and the words of
my dad. One of my father's famous quotes was when
he came home, I was three years ago, they just
turned my body loose. And I think that what I
would want people to really hold close to themselves is
(30:49):
that if a man could find freedom for himself, actualized
the feeling and experience of liberation in a cage, then
what might be possible for us out here? Um? And yeah,
that I hold onto that the fact that he was
able to experience liberation in bondage, and that what that
(31:10):
means is that we're able to experience it now. And
I know it doesn't look like that with our government
in the way that things are going, but that liberation
is an experience to be felt in the body and
one that we can actualize, and I want us to
hold onto that. Thank you for listening to Righteous Convictions
(31:39):
with Jason Flam. I'd like to thank our production team,
Connor Hall, Annie Chelsea, Jeff Kleber and Lila Robinson and
Kevin Wardis. The music in this production was supplied by
three time OSCAR nominated composer Ja Ralph. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook,
and Twitter at Lava for Good. You can also follow
me on both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason flam Right.
(32:00):
Just Convictions with Jason plowm is the production of Lava
for Good podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one
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