Angela Davis (African American scholar, author and renowned civil rights activist) supporting BDS against Apartheid Israel (2014): “In the US, there are some 2.5 million people in our country’s jails and prisons and military prisons, and jails in Indian country, and immigrant detention centers — on any given day, that is to say, there are 2.5 million people, approximately. It’s a daily census, so it doesn’t reflect the numbers of people who go through the system every week, or every month, or every year. The majority of those people are people of color. The fastest-growing sector consists of women, women of color. Many prisoners are queer, and trans — as a matter of fact, trans people of color are the group most likely to be arrested and imprisoned. Racism provides the fuel for the maintenance, reproduction and expansion of the prison industrial complex. And so, if we say, as we do, abolish the prison industrial complex, we should also say abolish apartheid. And end the occupation of Palestine. When we have, in the States, described the segregation in occupied Palestine, that so clearly mirrors the historical apartheid of racism in the southern United States of America, especially when we talk about this to black people, the response is often “why hasn’t anyone told us about this before? Why hasn’t anyone told us about the signs in occupied Palestine? And about the segregated express auto-highways? Why hasn’t anyone told us this before? ”And so, just as we say “never again” with the respect to the fascism that produced the Holocaust, we should also say “never again” with respect to apartheid, in the southern US. But that means, first and foremost, that we will have to expand and deepen our solidarities with the people of Palestine. People of all genders and sexualities. People inside and outside prison walls. Inside and outside the apartheid wall. Boycott G4S, support BDS, and finally, Palestine will be free” (transcript of Angela Davis speech in Nora Barrows-Friedman, “Angela Davis: “support BDS, and Palestine will be free””, Electronic Intifada podcast, 17 January 2014: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/angela-davis-support-bds-and-palestine-will-be-free ).