Angela Yvonne Davis note (born January 26, 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American political activist and scholar in the fields of race, gender, and politics. Davis is considered a countercultural icon and is regarded with saint-like reverence amongst leftists of her generation, both for her political activities in the 1960s and '70s and for her continued scholarship into the present day.
Born and raised in Alabama, Davis grew up in the shadow of anti-Black violence and segregation. She showed an affinity for politics from a very early age, marching and organizing against segregated facilities and getting involved with the American Communist Party all before she finished high school. A truly gifted student, Davis won a scholarship to study French Literature at Brandeis University, but later switched her interest to philosophy – Marxism in particular – after being exposed to the works of Jean-Paul Sartre. To that end, the premier New Left theorist and social philosopher Herbert Marcuse took her under his wing. This would be her introduction to Critical Theory, a field in which she would become an expert. Throughout her studies, Davis continued her association with the Communists, but never formally joined, as she felt patronized by the organization. She also witnessed lectures by the likes of James Baldwin and Malcolm X, which inspired her to think more deeply about issues of race in America.
After graduating, Davis undertook doctoral studies in West Germany to pursue her newfound interest in philosophy. She became further influenced by the country's strong student socialist movement, and furthered her study of social philosophy under the Neo-Marxist Theodor Adorno. During her studies in Germany, the militant Black Liberation Movement entered full swing in America: the Black Panther Party had formed in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee had come under the influence of the fiery Black Power advocate Stokley Carmichael, and the Congress of Racial Equality had shifted its focus to Black Nationalism. These events caused Davis to leave Germany before her doctorate was complete so that she could join the struggle back home.
Davis quickly found herself disappointed with what she perceived as the overly-sentimental nature of the Black Power movement. She found that most rejected Marxism out-of-hand as a "white man's thing", and too many were content to vent their anger at white society without offering a way forward. She also found the cultural nationalism of certain organizations to be merely superficial disguises for accommodation with white supremacy. Davis was, however, impressed by the Black Panther Party and, along with the all-Black branch of the Communist Party, this more or less became her political home.
After finishing her doctoral studies under Marcuse in San Diego, Davis was offered a professorship at UCLA's philosophy department. Ronald Reagan, then-governor of California, attempted to block this appointment because of her association with the Communist Party and the Black Panther Party, but failed after Davis sued the Board of Regents. It was at UCLA that she would make a name for herself as a scholar of black feminism and critical theory, as well as an activist. She became a fugitive when it was discovered that she had purchased firearms for a Black teenager who had gone on to kidnap and murder a Marin County judge, making her the third woman ever placed on the FBI's Most Wanted List (after the murderers Ruth Eisemann-Schier and Marie Dean Arrington). She was eventually captured and put on trial before an all-white jury. A mass national movement was formed to secure her release and pay for her legal defense, while Davis maintained her innocence. Shocking the entire country, the jury acquitted Davis of all charges.
After this incident, Davis returned to political activism and academia. She mostly taught within the University of California, and was active in political causes for Cuba, American Indians, and the rights of prisoners. Nowadays, she has retired from teaching, but still participates in political discourse.
Angela Davis is seen by many to represent the spirit of the '60s and '70s.note Her iconic status is due primarily to her embodiment of the ideal of a scholar-activist, a living example of Karl Marx's dictum that "The philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it." For Davis, her scholarship informed her political activism and vice versa. This naturally drew the ire of more conservative critics, many of whom believe that academia is no place for social activism (or activists, for that matter).
Davis' most famous works include Women, Race, and Class and Are Prisons Obsolete?. The former is a magisterial work on the racial and class-based biases that permeated the Women's Rights Movement. The latter is a collection of essays arguing for a full-scale abolition of the American prison system in favor of alternative forms of criminal punishment. Davis' latest work is Freedom is a Constant Struggle, a study linking the movement against police brutality in Ferguson, Missouri and the Palestinian liberation movement.
