Angela Davis is a Seattle Native where her childhood roots are in the Central District and Mount Baker neighborhoods which were predominately African American. She was an only child raised by her brilliant single mother who struggled with mental illness. Her childhood roots were also influenced by the 1960’s and 70’s which were the musical sounds of Motown, the Civil Rights Movement, and Brown vs. The Board of Education.
Angela is a single mother who raised three children in her childhood home. This is significant because returning to her childhood home created the driving force of transforming tragedy
into triumph and pain into purpose. Her educational roots were shaped by the Seattle Public Schools voluntary busing program in the 1970’s. Angela’s educational experiences were constant comparisons of the impact that conditioning of the white way and the black way of viewing the world creates. These contradictions and inconsistencies prepared her for many more inconsistencies in humanity. From elementary to middle school, she attended local schools; T.T. Minor elementary school, Madrona middle school and Meany Jr. high, which had continuity with the community she lived in. Her friends looked like her, understood her and she experienced community cohesion. In the second half of 6th grade, her mother was ill, and she lived in Bellevue, Washington for 6 months. During that time, she attended an all-girl Catholic School called Forest Ridge. It was shocking to attend a school where there were only three Black girls, and she was the only one in her 6 th grade class. Her high school, community college and 4-year institution had many of the same inconsistencies of white vs black views. Angela’s spiritual roots were formed by Episcopal, Pentecostal, and Apostolic, Christian religious principles and practices. In her adult life, her journey and awareness of African spirituality by Dr. Orisade Awodola solidified her conviction of how spiritual manipulation and control were deeply connected to colonization and systemic oppression. These spiritual experiences forged a broader universal understanding of the move of God, the power of God and manifestation of God’s purpose for humanity. Experiences with racism, abuse, trauma and the path to healing and mind, body, soul, and spirit are a lifelong journey. She is a survivor of rape, generational domestic violence, cancer, and psychological trauma after finding her mother deceased by suicide at 12 years old. Each of these significant life altering experiences has formed a deep sense of empathy for humanity. Her developmental, educational, and spiritual roots prepared her for passion in restorative circle work. Angela’s journey of healing, faith, and restorative circles paved the way to share the power of tragedy into triumph and pain to passion and purpose. One example of this is when her stepfather beat her mother unconscious and then came into her room to rape her. These heinous actions have forever changed her, but her conviction has been to become better-not bitter. Becoming better is reconnecting and re-envisioning her faith. That re-envisioning has consistently confirmed that God is greater than the vilest actions humanity can do. Systemic and institutionalized oppression created many internal dilemmas for Angela. There were times when she was mocked for ‘sounding White’ among her peers and working as a Black woman in a white business world created many experiences where she felt humiliation. As a single mother, the realization of the generational impact of systemic and institutionalized oppression was even more evident during the War on Drug era. This was during the timeline of raising her kids in her childhood home. She was employed by King County Department of Youth Services which served as a youth detention facility. Receiving a paycheck to provide for her family from this institution was heart breaking because some of the kids that went to the same schools, daycare and community centers lived in the same neighborhood as her children, were being processed and detained at her place of employment. As life’s experiences began to affect Angela’s mental and emotional states, in 1989 she began to recognize the inconsistent impact of healing and support of the church. This inconsistence was in direct references to Jesus whom Christians are to strive to live as and the understanding of what is meant as the expression God is love. Seeking help and support with PTSD, she was ostracized, stigmatized mocked, and the subject of many sermons. Since 2006 to now there has been a shift in collective healing with mental health and spirituality working together to help in many spiritual practices This shift is an ongoing process that connects to the power of restorative circle work in its many forms. This part of Angela’s passion for collective normalizing of healing and restorative circles. From 1989 to 2022, Angela began to search for the greater purpose of what faith, healing, religion, spirituality, institutionalized oppression, and colonization, mean to her. She will continue a lifelong journey of learning the power and impact of these concepts, and ideas. This lifelong learning will also include transparency, in transformations and these are some of the complexities that create the passion of Angela creating CCS Unlimited.
COMMUNITY ADVOCACY & EDUCATION
EMPLOYMENT
Angela’s vision for CCS Unlimited is a co-creation of transformative ways to collectively individually move towards a positive co-existence for the greater good that exists in humanity.
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