Angela Davis
February 13, 2023
“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” ― Angela Y. Davis
and after her infamous trial].
https://www.sfchronicle.com/chronicle_vault/article/Angela-Davis-early-California-days-before-15584087.php
Activist and author Angela Davis gained international reputation through her involvement in a murder case and trial of conspiracy in 1970. She advocates for women’s rights, civil activism, and LGBTQ+ rights, and was an active member of the U.S. Communist party and Black Panther party before leaving both parties in 1991 to found the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.
Davis was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. As a teenager, she organized interracial study groups, which later were broken up by the police. This is one of many examples of discrimination and racial prejudice she had to experience growing up in Birmingham, one of the key cities of the civil rights movement. In 1963, the marginalized residents of the segregated city and home of racially motivated violence started protesting peacefully for freedom and equality.
Later Davis moved to Massachusetts to study at Bendais University. There she joined the U.S communist party and the Black Panther party. After graduation, Davis was hired to teach at the University of California, but she was fired because of her ties to communism. She was acquitted after facing trial and was able to get her job back.
Apart from her job, Davis was a supporter of three prisoners, known as the Soledad brothers, named after the Soledad Prison. They all were accused of killing a prison guard after three black inmates were shot by another prison guard during a fight. The guns used in this charge were registered to Angela Davis which put her in the top ten of the FBI’s most wanted list . Davis believed that there was racial prejudice involved in the case and defended the brothers.
After 18 months in jail she was acquitted of all crimes. Following her legal troubles, she traveled to Western Europe and taught in Paris and Frankfurt before she returned to the US to teach at the University of California.
In 1997 Angela Davis founded “Critical Resistance,” an organization which tries to abolish imprisonment as a way to solve social and political problems. In addition to being an advocate for prisoner’s rights, she is also the author of several books, like “Women, Race, and Class” and “Freedom is a Constant Struggle.” Her books are mainly about social injustice and social movements.
Davis retired in 2008 however, she continues to teach and push for prison reform and women’s rights.
Work cited
Angela Y. Davis. (n.d.). Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Retrieved January 12,
2023, from
https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/collections/angela-y-davis
The editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (Ed.). (2023, January 6). Angela Davis.
Britannica. Retrieved January 12, 2023, from
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Angela-Davis
History.com Editors (Ed.). (2021, January 26). Angela Davis. History.com.
Retrieved January 12, 2023, from
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/angela-davis
History.com Editors (Ed.). (2021, January 26). Angela Davis. History.com.
Retrieved January 12, 2023, from