Angela Davis says her "consciousness has been enabled always by shared endeavors and collective consciousness." At critical points in her life, the former Black Panther Party leader said, "I’ve always been one of many," the AP reports. Davis made the point Saturday when she was one of the inductees at the National Women’s Hall of Fame. "I feel this connection, and I always have felt it ... to the women's rights pioneers who came before me," said lawyer Gloria Allred, another inductee. The 2019 class was announced in March by the museum, which is based in Seneca Falls, New York, where a women's rights convention was held in 1848.
Many of the inductees, who included Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, used the moment to address women's issues, per the Monroe County Post. Sarah Deer said, "Indigenous women were the original rape victims," adding that "until we address violence against indigenous women, no woman will be free." Nicole Malachowski, a retired colonel in the Air Force and a combat veteran, said 2 million women who were service pilots during World War II were denied benefits and left out of the national narrative. "Their story was lost," she said. Jane Fonda called for action on climate change. "We are living in the last possible moment of human history," she said, adding that women are the best hope to lead the fight. "Rise to this crisis," Fonda said. (Read more women's issues stories.)