Angela Davis

Angela Yvonne Davis (1944 - present) is an American educator, social and political activist, and writer. As a member of the Communist Party USA, the Black Panthers, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Davis was a well known activist since her emergence in radical politics in the 1960s, and is considered to be one of the founders of Black feminism.

Early Life
Born on January 26, 1944 in Birmingham, Davis was raised by her parents, both of whom were educators. Davis attended segregated schools in Alabama, but began her organizing career by starting interracial study groups, which were broken up by the local police forces.

Involvement in Post Secondary Education
After graduating from high school, Davis attended Brandeis University, where she graduated magna cum laude in 1965. After earning her M.A. from the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) in 1968, Davis went on to receive a doctorate in philosophy from Humboldt University of East Berlin. During her time in San Diego, Davis became increasingly involved with the Black Panthers. Most of her time, however, was spent with the Che-Lumumba Club - named for Che Guevara and Patrice Lumumba, an all-black contingent of the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA). After Davis's return from East Berlin, she worked at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) as an assistant professor of philosophy. Her main focus while at UCLA was the philosophy of Kant and Marx, as well as black literature. Despite being an incredibly popular professor, Davis was fired by the UCLA regent, then led by future president Ronald Reagan, for a leak which associated her with the CPUSA. After a legal battle reinstated her at UCLA, Davis was dismissed after the expiration of her contract in 1970. After the height of her activist career, Davis returned to California to become a tenured professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC), despite the claims of former governor Ronald Reagan that she would never again be allowed to teach in the UC system.

Activist and Political Career
Although Davis's activism began in her teen years, her rise to national and international notoriety began after her removal from UCLA. She became involved in advocating for the release of the Soledad Brothers, a group of inmates in Soledad Prison. In 1970, the FBI placed Davis on the Ten Most Wanted List based on false charges, of which she was acquitted after one of the longest and most famous trials in contemporary American history. Davis was a longstanding member of CPUSA even after the scandal of the late 1960s. After over 20 years in CPUSA, Davis left to form the group, Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, after disagreements with the leadership of CPUSA on subjects related to praxis. Believing that following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, communists should reject Leninism in favor of democratic socialism, Davis and other reformists left CPUSA and formed CCDS. Then, in 1998, after a conference of prison abolition activists, Davis and others founded Critical Resistance. CR is an organization opposed to the prison-industrial complex, including policing, which it seeks to abolish and replace with community-based, restorative, and sustainable alternatives to what CR calls the 'white-supremacist institution.'

Trial
After her involvement with the Soledad Brothers, Davis began to receive anonymous death threats, wich led to her purchasing a gun for protection. On August 7, 1970, Davis's gun was used by her friend in an attempt to free George Jackson of the Soledad Brothers. In the attempt, a judge and several others were killed. The courts charged Davis with kidnapping, conspiracy, and murder, despite her not being involved in the events. A chase ensued, with Davis being arrested after two months of running, being placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, and an attempt to flee the country. After a highly public case that resulted in an international campaign to free Davis and accuse the US government of holding black liberation activists as political prisoners, the prosecution's case fell apart. During the case, the prosecution had accused her first of having political motives to kill a judge, yet Davis had never advocated this. Then the prosecution attempted to provide evidence that Davis was in love with Jackson and so instigated the conspiracy. Evidence for both accusations proved unsubstantial. Davis had no knowledge of her friend's plan to use her gun and the key 'witness' for the prosecution turned out to have mistaken another black woman for Davis - despite the two women not looking alike. Davis was acquitted in 1972 after a thirteen week trial, in which an all-white jury delivered three not-guilty verdicts for all of her charges.

Philosophy
Davis's main contributions to feminism have dealt with blackness, femininity, socialism and Marxism, and rejections of carceral feminism. As one of the leading figures of the black liberation movement, also called the Black Power movement, Davis rejected the proposal that black women had to choose between the black movement and the women's movement. In breaking down this false dichotomy, Davis helped build on the idea of a web of oppression(s) - an idea that would later be built upon by the work of Kimberlé Crenshaw and the idea of intersectionality.

In discussions of oppression, Davis did not leave out economic inequality. As a member of CPUSA, Davis frequently toured the world speaking on the need for black liberation to include socialism. In fact, she says that if any liberation movement recreates oppression, it is destined to fail. Therefore, Davis put forth that black liberation must include a socialist revolution and vice versa, even further posing that all systems of oppression must be overturned together.

As for the rejection of carceral feminism, Davis has long been an active supporter of prison and police abolition. By proposing sustainable alternatives to the prison-industrial complex, Davis in effect flips the carceral feminist argument on its head. Carceral feminism, which is not named as such by its proponents, posits an increased criminalization of gender violence. For example, the increase in so-called 'law and order' policies to crack down on sex trafficking and occasionally even sex work itself. As opposed to addressing exploitative sex work by criminalizing it, Davis and other prison abolition advocates propose that society addresses the underlying issues that result in sex trafficking and sexual and gender violence.

Davis's philosophy regarding feminism, black liberation, socialism, and prison abolition could best be described as 'revolutionary.' As opposed to addressing the symptom issues of sexual violence, police brutality, poverty, Davis proposes to address the systemic causes of these symptoms through a transformation of the whole of society.

If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance (1971)
Perhaps the most comprehensive account of Davis's arrest and trial for conspiracy in relation to the Soledad Brothers, this retells from Davis's point of view the events following the killing of a judge and her arrest.

Women, Race, and Class (1983)
A survey of historical women's movements and how they are marred by the racist and classist beliefs and actions of their leaders.

Are Prisons Obsolete (2003)
An overview of how reform movements have caused the transformation of one form of oppression to another, from slavery to convict leasing to segregation to mass incarceration. As a discussion on the ways that the criminal justice system perpetuates oppression, Davis reveals both reasons and ways to abolish prisons and policing and move to a more just society.

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement (2016)
Highlighting state terrorism from the anti-Black violence of the US government in Ferguson to the anti-Arab violence of the Israeli government, Davis and Cornel West reflect on the need for intersectional, abolitionist approaches to justice.