Angela Davis is a poster girl for leftist radicals. She’s a communist, former Black Panther, critical theorist, and Israel-hater who has made a career out of sowing racial division. On Wednesday, however, the victimhood status she’s been carefully curating and profiting off for decades was severely undermined after it was revealed that Davis is a descendent of the earliest Europeans to begin settling North America, the Mayflower passengers.
On an episode of PBS’s “Finding Your Roots,” host Henry Louis Gates Jr. revealed to Davis that she is descended from William Brewster, one of the 101 colonists who voyaged to America in 1620 aboard the Mayflower.
“No, I can’t believe this. No, my ancestors did not come here on the Mayflower,” Davis said in disbelief. “Your ancestors came on the Mayflower,” Gates reaffirmed. “Oof. That’s a little bit too much to deal with right now,” Davis responded.
Davis’s ancestor, William Brewster, wasn’t just any colonist, either. In the Plymouth Colony, Brewster was the senior elder, religious leader, and adviser to Gov. William Bradford. His memorial stone states he is “Patriarch of the Pilgrims.”
Ironically, America’s settlement—and therefore the legacy of Davis’s ancestors—has been brutally attacked by Davis and her progressive allies. Davis is a trained critical theorist who attended the infamous University of Frankfort, originator of the Frankfurt School of Marxist philosophers. She believes “Racism is embedded in the fabric of this country,” and she wants public school students to be taught critical race theory.
Davis and her friends have spent decades curating the damaging notion of collective American guilt, especially “white guilt.” This radical cultural Marxist ideology has produced things like the damaging 1619 Project and the 2020 “summer of love” that resulted in the destruction of countless historical monuments. It is the brainwashed protégés of Davis and her friends who routinely vandalize Plymouth Rock and other monuments of Davis’s ancestors.
Predictably, Davis wasn’t too happy to learn that she can trace her lineage back to the heart of the American experiment, which is antithetical to everything she stands for. Davis decries capitalism and individualism. In her view, there is black and white, and oppressed and the oppressors. Everything is viewed through the prism of race and class.
If for a moment, though, she steps outside of her Marxist framework, she’d discover that there’s a lot she can learn from her Pilgrim ancestors.
1. An Appreciation for Self Government
On November 11, 1620, Davis’s ancestor signed the famous Mayflower Compact, which laid philosophical foundations for two other revolutionary self-government documents: the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. The Mayflower Compact is one of the most important documents in world history because it set a precedent for the establishment of a democratic government by the consent of the governed.
In the years that followed, the Mayflower, and the American founding documents that it inspired, established principles of equality, self-government, rights, and freedoms across the world. This is in contrast to the Communist regimes that Davis has supported, which have resulted in mass murder and starvation and never allow individual self-rule.
2. How to Get Along With Other Races
Unlike Davis, who has spent a lifetime pitting blacks and whites against one another, the Pilgrims knew a thing or two about racial harmony. On April 1, 1621, the Pilgrims signed a historic peace treaty with the Wampanoag Indians. The treaty marked 50 years of peace between the two groups and is widely considered the most successful Indian treaty in American history.
As a testament to their strong relationship, a Pilgrim elder even saved the life of the Wampanoag chief. In March of 1623, the Pilgrims learned that Massasoit, the leader of the Wampanoags, was on the brink of death. At once, Pilgrim elder Edward Winslow rushed to his side.
Winslow traveled 40 miles to administer medicinal broth, natural herbs, and prayers. Within days, Massasoit made a full recovery, stating, “Now I see the English are my friends and love me; and whilst I live, I will never forget this kindness they have showed me.”
3. Socialism Doesn’t Work
In 1979, Davis praised “the glorious name” of Communist mass murderer Vladimir Lenin and the “great October Revolution,” and twice she was the American Communist Party’s candidate for vice president. Perhaps one thing Davis would be proud to learn is that her ancestors tried their hands at Communism’s close relative, socialism.
The Virginia Company, which sponsored the Pilgrims’ voyage, called for the settlement’s farmland to be owned and worked communally and for the harvests to be equally shared. As with all socialist experiments, the result was disastrous, and more than half the settlers died during their first winter.
The socialist system disincentivized the settlers from working. As William Bradford recounted in his memoir, “slackers showed up late for work … everybody was happy to claim their equal share … and production only shrank.”
To save the colony, Bradford abandoned communal farming and instead divided the property into privately owned plots of land for each family. After that, food production and prosperity flourished, and Davis’ ancestors thankfully learned (the hard way) that socialism leads to misery and death.
Evita Duffy-Alfonso is a staff writer to The Federalist and the co-founder of the Chicago Thinker. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, and her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1 or contact her at evita@thefederalist.com.
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