Angela Y. Davis
Angela Y. Davis (1944– ) is a scholar, author, activist, and black feminist philosopher. She is a founding member of Critical Resistance, an organization dedicated to the abolition of the prison industrial system.
Angela Yvonne Davis is one of the most recognized political activists of the 1960s and 1970s. She rose to national attention in 1969 after being removed from her teaching position at the University of California, Los Angeles, for her membership in the Communist Party at the urging of then–California Governor Ronald Reagan. In 1970, Davis was charged as an accomplice to conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder. Her arrest sparked an international campaign to gain her release. In 1972, after a high-profile trial, she was acquitted of all charges. Davis was the vice-presidential candidate for the Communist Party of the United States in the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections.
An advocate for prisoners' rights, she is a founding member of Critical Resistance, a national organization dedicated to abolishing the prison industrial complex. She writes and lectures on social injustice, social movements, and the intersections of race, gender, and class. She has published many books, including Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974), Women, Race, and Class (1983), Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday (1999), and Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire (2005).
Related Video: Acquiring the Angela Davis Papers
