Mike Davis, American activist and author of Slum Planet and Quartz City, has died at the age of 76

American writer, historian and activist Mike Davis has died at the age of 76. Davis has authored several books, including Planet of Slums, Urban Control: An Ecology of Fear, and Quartz City, a critical in-depth look at his hometown of Los Angeles. In 2020, democracy is now! I spoke with Mike Davis during the height of the pandemic.

Mike Davis: “My young children, who are still in high school, and the students I’ve been studying this year have really opened my eyes. They won’t vote unless there is some serious and radical structural change in the democratic political platform that they can believe in. And that’s one thing, I said. We have to fight with all our might to achieve it.”

In August 2022, with only months left, Mike Davis told The Guardian: “In the end, what keeps us going is the love we have for one another and a refusal to bow down. Head to accept judgment, no matter how strong it seems. That’s what. Ordinary people have to do. We have to love each other. We have to defend each other. We have to fight.”

Mike Davis died Tuesday at his San Diego home from complications related to esophageal cancer.