Short Profile of Angela Yvonne Davis
by Marsha Prescod
 Angela
Yvonne Davis, born in 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama
is an African-American political activist, philosopher,
and educator whose imprisonment for murder - on
charges later dropped - generated worldwide protest
in the 1970s as she was viewed as a political prisoner
in the battles in the 1950s, 60s and 70s between Civil
Rights and Black Power activists, and parts of the
US government.
A background of a politically conscious family, segregated
schooling and living in an area of white terrorist activity
directed against blacks (namely the Ku Klux Klan who
bombed churches) made a highly intelligent child into
a top student who started organising political activity
in high school. Leaving the southern US she went to New
York to finish school. She subsequently studied at universities
in Massachusetts, Frankfurt and California. All the while
she was active politically, involved in groups striving
for civil/human rights for black people and other oppressed
peoples, but became regarded as a threat by the US authorities
after she became involved with two groups. The Black
Panthers and the Communist Party. Both were controversial
in the US. The Black Panthers argued for the self-defence
(armed if necessary) of Black communities in the US,
in pursuit if equal rights, employment and decent housing.
This was contrary to the approach of the Civil Rights
Movement’s approach in the southern US where passively
taking beatings and abuse on camera whilst demonstrating
for the right to vote and an end to segregation had been
effective in getting the world’s attention. The
Communist party was an anathema in a country where the
Cold War between the USSR and the US and their competing
political philosophies was at its height.
 Angela Davis - a professor at 24 - was teaching at
the University of California and speaking out as an
advocate
for black prisoners. A group of prisoners known as
the ‘Soledad
Brothers’ became famous due to the prison writings
of George Jackson, one of their group, and Davis was
linked to them. She was fired from her job at the University
in 1969 at the request of the then Governor of California,
Ronald Reagan and despite her winning a court action,
her employers refused to renew her contract. Then Jonathan
Jackson - brother of George Jackson who had been killed
by prison guards - used a gun belonging to Angela Davis
in a hostage taking where people died in a shoot-out.
Though not involved, Davis was charged with kidnapping,
conspiracy and murder and ended up going into hiding
and being on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.
She was captured, imprisoned and became the subject
of an
embarrassing international ‘Free Angela Davis’ campaign
led by students and academics. She was eventually freed
in 1972, charges were dropped and she went on to establish
the National Alliance Against Racism and Political
Repression. She has run for Vice President of the US,
is still an
academic and still campaigning for social justice.
See Links for further info on Angela
Davis and the Civil
Rights Movement
Books
on the Civil Rights Movement
Books by Angela Y Davis
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