Angela Davis quote: "I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change.

[highplainsdem]

17. That WASN'T said by Angela Davis, but by counterculture cartoonist and epigrammatist Ashleigh Brilliant

(his real name). It's often misattributed to Davis, just as a quote about "difficult women" is often misattributed to Jane Goodall. Both misattributions have helped circulate countless social media posts and sold tons of merchandise that wouldn't have sold as well if attributed correctly (though those selling the merch might have sincerely believed the quote was from that famous person).

I searched for quite a while for any site or person claiming Angela Davis had said that to provide any details about when and where she said or wrote it, and I couldn't find any.

That's always a huge red flag that a quote is misattributed.

The oldest source of a nearly identical statement was a syndicated cartoon by Ashleigh Brilliant, as I learned on the website of etymologist Barry Popik -see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Popik -

https://barrypopik.com/blog/im_no_longer_accepting

“If I’m not home accepting what I can’t change, I’m probably out changing what I can’t accept” was posted in newspapers on October 18, 1978, in the “Pot-Shots” syndicated feature by cartoonist Ashleigh Brilliant.

The first attribution to Angela Davis, as far as Popik could discover, was more than 30 years later, a couple of years after the unattributed quote had started appearing online, on Twitter, in 2010:

This version of the saying probably originated on an image. This image (featuring a Native American) by Idle No More possibly dates to November 2012.

“‘I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept’ - Angela Davis” was posted on Twitter by NativeSon on March 6, 2013. “‘I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I’m changing the things I cannot accept. ’ Angela Davis” was posed on Twitter b Baby D O L L on April 2, 2014. American political activist, philosopher, academic, Marxist feminist, and author Angela Davis did not originate or popularize the saying.

Wikipedia on.Ashleigh Brilliant:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashleigh_Brilliant


A page on Brilliant's own site quoting a book by Henry Alford with several pages about him:

https://www.ashleighbrilliant.com/BrilliantWisdom.html

After I'd talked with Brilliant, I did some more Googling and found a public lecture he gave in the spring of 2007, in a series called "What Matters Most," Sponsored by the Santa Barbara City College and the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum. At one point, Brilliant brings up the age-old query of whether we are meant to let things happen or make things happen - "As Dylan Thomas put it, do you 'go gentle into that good night,' or do you 'rage, rage, against the dying of the light'?" Brilliant didn't presume to have the answer. But he did once write an epigram, he said, that he hoped people would put on their doors. The epigram read, "If I'm not home, accepting what I can't change, I'm probably out, changing what I can't accept." . . . .

The quote didn't start popping up on the internet, at first not attributed to anyone, until a few years after that 2007 lecture, then was first misattributed to Angela Davis a few years after that.

Please correct your OP. And thanks!