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Angela Yvonne Davis was born January 26, 1944, to B. Frank, a teacher
and businessman, and Sally E. Davis, who was also a teacher. Davis was
born in Birmingham, Alabama, at a time of great political unrest and
racism in the United States. As a child, Davis's parents had many
Communist friends and she subsequently joined a Communist youth group.
Davis traveled to Germany in 1960, where she spent two years
studying at the Frankfurt School under acclaimed teacher Theodor
Adorno. From 1963 to 1964, Davis attended the University of Paris.
Davis, then returned to the United States and attended Brandeis
University, in Waltham, Massachusetts. After earning her B.A. (magna
cum laude) in 1965, Davis flew to Germany, where she conducted graduate
research. Upon returning to the U.S., Davis enrolled at the University
of California at San Diego, where she began pursuing her master's
degree, which she received in 1968.
It was at the University of California at San Diego that Davis began
closely studying the Communist party. In 1968, Davis became a member of
the Communist party, as well as a member of the Black Panthers. It was
her involvement in these radical groups that caused Davis to be watched
very closely by the United States government. After teaching for only
one year, it was also these radical associations that resulted in her
dismissal from her position as assistant professor of philosophy at the
University of California at Los Angeles.
In 1970, Davis became only the third woman in history to appear on
the FBI's most wanted list. Davis was charged by the authorities with
conspiracy to free George Jackson with a bloody shootout in front of a
courthouse in California. The FBI also asserted that Davis armed
prisoners in the Marin County courthouse with guns that were registered
in her name. After the warrant was issued for her arrest, Davis spent
two weeks evading police.
During this time, a sign went up in windows of houses and businesses
all across the United States. The sign read, "Angela, sister, you are
welcome in this house." Finally, Davis was discovered in a Greenwich
Village hotel, and was formally charged with murder and kidnapping,
even though she didn't actually take part in the shootout in Marin
County, California. Davis spent sixteen months behind bars, until her
subsequent acquittal on all charges.
After her release from prison, in 1971, Davis's essays were
published in a collection entitled If They Come in the Morning: Voices
of Resistance. In her essays, she details her belief in Communist
theory, as well as her thoughts on racial oppression in the United
States. Davis's friends then convinced her that she should draft an
account of her life in the 1960s and 1970's. The result was Angela
Davis: An Autobiography. In 1980, Davis ran for Vice President of the
United States on the Communist Party ticket.
Davis's next book, Women, Race, and Class was published in 1981.
Women, Race, and Class became an instant feminist classic and a text
for many classes on sexism, racism, and classism. Then, in 1989, Davis
published the first collection of her speeches, entitled Women,
Culture, and Politics. This book documents Davis's speeches from 1983
to 1987.
Today, Angela Y. Davis continues to be a strong force for political
and social activism, as well as the reformation of the "prison
industrial complex." She is also an accomplished cultural theorist.
Davis is now a tenured professor at the University of California at
Santa Cruz, and spends much of her time delivering speeches to eager
audiences around the country.
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