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Angela Yvonne Davis was born on January 26, 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama. Her childhood home was in a neighborhood nicknamed “Dynamite Hill,” because it was regularly targeted by vigilantes engaged in acts of anti-Black violence. Davis learned activism at a young age from her mother, Sallye Bell Davis, who was a prominent member of the Southern Negro Youth Congress. Angela Y. Davis was already in college at Brandeis University when Birmingham became a focal point for the burgeoning civil rights movement. She was moved deeply by the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, which killed young Black girls she knew.

After her undergraduate studies were completed, Davis went to Germany where she pursued a doctoral degree in philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. There she studied under the direction of philosopher Herbert Marcuse, who is often referred to as “the father of the New Left.” Davis explored communist thought and, when Marcuse took a position in California, she transferred her studies to the United States. Her membership in the Communist Party attracted the attention of the FBI, which surveilled Davis for many years.

In the late 1960s, Davis began teaching philosophy at UCLA. Her political affiliations created difficulties, however, and she was repeatedly fired and rehired. This cycle ended in 1970, though, when Davis was charged with first-degree murder and placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. A young Black man with whom Davis had worked, Jonathan Jackson, had stormed a Marin County courtroom, and several people were killed during subsequent gunfire with police. It was discovered that Davis owned one of the guns Jackson used, leading to a warrant for her arrest for kidnapping and murder. Labeled a terrorist, Davis fled California but was apprehended in New York. Davis led her own defense from prison and won acquittal from an all-white jury. The 16 months she spent in prison sharpened her understanding of political persecution and strengthened her opposition to mass incarceration.

After her acquittal, Davis returned to the classroom and the frontlines of radical politics. Her life has been devoted to the fight for freedom of all kinds—intellectual, personal, and political—and this work has taken many forms. She was twice a vice presidential candidate for the Communist Party and has been active in various political organizations, including the Black Panther Party. She has penned many essays and lectures opposing the death penalty, mass incarceration, gender discrimination, anti-trans legislation, and the militarization of the police. Davis has also prominently supported advocates for liberation in Cuba, Palestine, South Africa, and other parts of the world.

Davis is the author of more than ten books, including a 1974 autobiography, Women, Culture, and Politics (1990), and Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003). Her works are characterized by a fervent commitment to human freedom and equality. Throughout her many decades of activism, Davis has acquired both advocates and detractors in large numbers. Davis has been inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and her activism is documented in the National Museum of African American History in Washington, D.C.

Next section Context: History’s Role in the Constant Struggle for Freedom

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