In 1969, she was hired as an assistant professor of philosophy at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). UCLA's governingBoard of Regents soon fired her due to her membership in the CPUSA. After a court ruled the firing illegal, the university fired her for the use of inflammatory language. In 1970, guns belonging to Davis were used in anarmed takeover of a courtroom in Marin County, California, in which four people were killed. Prosecuted for three capital felonies—including conspiracy to murder—she was held in jail for more than a year before being acquitted of all charges in 1972.
Angela Davis was born on January 26, 1944,[10] inBirmingham, Alabama. She was christened at her father'sEpiscopal church.[11] Her family lived in the "Dynamite Hill" neighborhood, which was marked in the 1950s by the bombings of houses in an attempt to intimidate and drive out middle-class black people who had moved there. Davis occasionally spent time on her uncle's farm and with friends inNew York City.[12] Her siblings include two brothers,Ben and Reginald, and a sister, Fania. Ben playeddefensive back for theCleveland Browns andDetroit Lions in the late 1960s and early 1970s.[13]
Davis attended Carrie A. Tuggle School, a segregated black elementary school, and later, Parker Annex, a middle-school branch ofParker High School in Birmingham. During this time, Davis's mother, Sallye Bell Davis, was a national officer and leading organizer of theSouthern Negro Youth Congress, an organization influenced by theCommunist Party aimed at building alliances among African Americans in the South. Davis grew up surrounded by communist organizers and thinkers, who significantly influenced her intellectual development.[14] Among them was the Southern Negro Youth Congress officialLouis E. Burnham, whose daughterMargaret Burnham was Davis's friend from childhood, as well as her co-counsel during Davis's 1971 trial for murder and kidnapping.[15]
Davis was involved in her church youth group as a child and attended Sunday school regularly. She attributes much of her political involvement to her involvement with theGirl Scouts of the United States of America. She also participated in the Girl Scouts 1959national roundup inColorado. As a Girl Scout, she marched and picketed to protest racial segregation in Birmingham.[16]
Davis was awarded a scholarship toBrandeis University inWaltham,Massachusetts, where she was one of three black students in her class. She encountered theFrankfurt School philosopherHerbert Marcuse at a rally during theCuban Missile Crisis and became his student. In a 2007 television interview, Davis said, "Herbert Marcuse taught me that it was possible to be an academic, an activist, a scholar, and a revolutionary."[18] She worked part-time to earn enough money to travel to France and Switzerland and attended the eighthWorld Festival of Youth and Students inHelsinki. She returned home in 1963 to aFederal Bureau of Investigation interview about her attendance at the communist-sponsored festival.[19]
During her second year at Brandeis, Davis decided to major in French and continued her study of philosopher and writerJean-Paul Sartre. She was accepted by theHamilton College Junior Year in France Program. Classes were initially atBiarritz and later at theSorbonne. In Paris, she and other students lived with a French family. She was in Biarritz when she learned of the 1963Birmingham church bombing, committed by members of theKu Klux Klan, in which four black girls were killed; she had been personally acquainted with the victims.[19]
While completing her degree in French, Davis realized that her primary area of interest was philosophy. She was particularly interested in Marcuse's ideas. On returning to Brandeis, she sat in on his course. She wrote in her autobiography that Marcuse was approachable and helpful. She began making plans to attend theUniversity of Frankfurt forgraduate work in philosophy. In 1965, she graduatedmagna cum laude, a member ofPhi Beta Kappa.[19]
InWest Germany, with a monthly stipend of $100, she lived first with a German family and later with a group of students in a loft in an old factory. After visitingEast Berlin during the annualMay Day celebration, she felt that theEast German government was dealing better with the residual effects offascism than were the West Germans. Many of her roommates were active in the radicalSocialist German Student Union (SDS), and Davis participated in some SDS actions. Events in the United States, including the formation of theBlack Panther Party and the transformation ofStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to an all-black organization, drew her interest upon her return.[19]
Marcuse had moved to a position at theUniversity of California, San Diego, and Davis followed him there after her two years inFrankfurt.[19] Davis traveled to London to attend a conference on "The Dialectics of Liberation". The black contingent at the conference included the Trinidadian-AmericanStokely Carmichael and the BritishMichael X. Although moved by Carmichael's rhetoric, Davis was reportedly disappointed by her colleagues'black nationalist sentiments and their rejection of communism as a "white man's thing".[20]
She joined the Che-Lumumba Club, an all-black branch of the Communist Party USA named for revolutionariesChe Guevara andPatrice Lumumba, of Cuba and Congo, respectively.[21]
Davis earned amaster's degree from the University of California, San Diego, in 1968.[22] She completed some work for a PhD at the University of California, San Diego around 1970 but never received a degree because her manuscripts were confiscated by the FBI.[23] Instead, two years later, she received three honorary doctorates: In August 1972 fromMoscow State University,[24] and from theUniversity of Tashkent during that same visit,[25] and in September 1972 from theKarl-Marx University inLeipzig, Germany.[26] In 1981, she returned to Germany to continue working on her PhD.[27]
Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, 1969–70
Davis (center, without glasses) entersRoyce Hall with Kendra Alexander atUCLA for her first lecture, October 1969
Beginning in 1969, Davis was an acting assistant professor in thephilosophy department at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Although bothPrinceton andSwarthmore had tried to recruit her, she opted for UCLA because of its urban location.[28] At that time, she was known as aradical feminist and activist, a member of the Communist Party USA, and an affiliate of the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panther Party.[29][30]
Davis had previously joined the Communist Party in 1968 and had become a member of the Black Panther Party, working with a branch of the Black Panther Party in Los Angeles where she directed political education.[31] When Black Panther Party leadership determined that party members could not also be affiliated with other parties, Davis retained her Communist Party membership although she continued to work with the Black Panther Party.[32]
In 1969, theUniversity of California initiated a policy against hiring Communists.[33] At their September 19, 1969, meeting, theBoard of Regents fired Davis from her $10,000-a-year post (equivalent to $65,420 in 2024) because of her membership in the Communist Party,[34][35] urged on byCalifornia Governor and future presidentRonald Reagan.[36] JudgeJerry Pacht ruled the Regents could not fire Davis solely because of her affiliation with the Communist Party, and she resumed her post.[37][35][38]
The Regents fired Davis again on June 20, 1970, for the "inflammatory language" she had used in four different speeches. The report stated, "We deem particularly offensive such utterances as her statement that the regents 'killed, brutalized (and) murdered' thePeople's Park demonstrators, and her repeated characterizations of the police as 'pigs'".[39] TheAmerican Association of University Professors censured the board for this action.[38]
Davis was a supporter of theSoledad Brothers, three inmates who were accused and charged with the killing of a prison guard atSoledad Prison.[40]
On August 7, 1970, heavily armed 17-year-old African-American high-school studentJonathan Jackson, whose brother wasGeorge Jackson, one of the three Soledad Brothers, gained control of a courtroom inMarin County, California. He armed the Black defendants and took JudgeHarold Haley, Deputy District AttorneyGary W. Thomas, and three female jurors as hostages.[41][42] As Jackson transported the hostages and three black defendants away from the courtroom in a van, one of the defendants, James McClain, shot at the police. The police returned fire.[43]
The judge and three of the men were killed in the melee. One of the jurors, the prosecutor, and one of the attackers,Ruchell Magee, were injured. Although the judge was shot in the head with a blast from a shotgun which had been taped to his neck, he also suffered a chest wound from a bullet that may have been fired from outside the van. Evidence during the trial showed that either could have been fatal.[43] Davis had purchased several of the firearms Jackson used in the attack,[44] including the shotgun used to shoot Haley, which she bought at a San Francisco pawn shop two days before the incident.[42][45] She was also found to have been corresponding with one of the inmates involved.[46]
Davis had befriended George and Jonathan Jackson doing work attempting to free the Soledad Brothers. She had communicated frequently with George Jackson over letters and worked extensively with Jonathan Jackson in her work with the Soledad Brothers Defense Committee. She had grown close with the Jackson family in general during this time while working with them and speaking at events together.[20]
As California considers "all persons concerned in the commission of a crime, ... whether they directly commit the act constituting the offense, or aid and abet in its commission, ... are principals in any crime so committed", Davis was charged with "aggravated kidnapping and first degree murder in the death of Judge Harold Haley", and Marin County Superior Court Judge Peter Allen Smith issued a warrant for her arrest. Hours after the judge issued the warrant on August 14, 1970, a massive attempt to find and arrest Davis began. On August 18, four days after the warrant was issued, the FBI directorJ. Edgar Hoover listed Davis on theFBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List; she was the third woman and the 309th person to be listed.[41][47]Soon after, Davis became a fugitive and fled California. According to her autobiography, during this time she hid in friends' homes and moved at night. On October 13, 1970, FBI agents found her at aHoward Johnson Motor Lodge in New York City.[48] PresidentRichard M. Nixon congratulated the FBI on its "capture of the dangerous terrorist Angela Davis."[49]
On January 5, 1971, Davis appeared at Marin County Superior Court and declared her innocence before the court and nation: "I now declare publicly before the court, before the people of this country that I am innocent of all charges which have been leveled against me by the state of California."John Abt,general counsel of theCommunist Party USA, was one of the first attorneys to represent Davis for her alleged involvement in the shootings.[15]
Across the nation, thousands began organizing a movement to gain her release. In New York City, black writers formed a committee called the Black People in Defense of Angela Davis. By February 1971, more than 200 local committees in the United States, and 67 in foreign countries, worked to free Davis from jail.John Lennon andYoko Ono contributed to this campaign with the song "Angela".[51] In 1972, after a 16-month incarceration, the state allowed her release on bail from the county jail.[41] On February 23, 1972, Rodger McAfee, a dairy farmer fromFresno, California, paid her $100,000 (equivalent to $567,000 in 2024) bail with the help of Steve Sparacino, a wealthy business owner. TheUnited Presbyterian Church paid some of her legal defense expenses.[41][52]
A defense motion for a change of venue was granted, they had requested the trial be held inSan Francisco but that was refused and instead the trial was moved to Santa Clara County.[53]
At the trial witnesses said that Davis had purchased the guns to protect the Soledad Brothers defense headquarters.[54] On June 4, 1972, after 13 hours of deliberations,[43] theall-white jury returned a verdict ofnot guilty.[43] After the verdict, one juror, Ralph DeLange, made theBlack Power salute to a crowd of spectators, which he later told reporters was to show "a unity of opinion for all oppressed people". Ten jurors later attended victory celebrations with the defense.[55] The fact that she owned the guns used in the crime was judged insufficient to establish her role in the plot. She was represented by Howard Moore Jr. andLeo Branton Jr., who hired psychologists to help the defense determine who in the jury pool might favor their arguments, atechnique that has since become more common. However the defense were bitter that the jury was all-white.[43] They also hired experts to challenge the reliability of eyewitness accounts.[56][57]
After her acquittal, Davis went on an international speaking tour in 1972 and the tour included a trip toCuba, where she had previously been received byFidel Castro as a member of a Communist Party delegation in 1969.[58]Robert F. Williams,Huey Newton and Stokely Carmichael had also visited Cuba, andAssata Shakur later moved there after she escaped from a U.S. prison. At a mass rally held byAfro-Cubans, Davis was reportedly barely able to speak because her reception was so enthusiastic.[59] She perceived that Cuba was aracism-free country, which led her to believe that "only under socialism could the fight against racism be successfully executed." When she returned to the U.S., her socialist leanings increasingly influenced her understanding of racial struggles.[60] In 1974, she attended the Second Congress of theFederation of Cuban Women.[58]
In 1971, theCIA estimated that five percent ofSoviet propaganda efforts were directed towards the Angela Davis campaign.[61] In August 1972, Davis visited the Soviet Union at the invitation of theCentral Committee.[24]
On May 1, 1979, she was awarded theLenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union.[62] She visited Moscow later that month to accept the prize, where she praised "the glorious name" ofVladimir Lenin and the "greatOctober Revolution".[63]
The East German government organized an extensive campaign on behalf of Davis.[64] In September 1972, Davis visited East Germany, where she met the state's leaderErich Honecker, received an honorary degree from theUniversity of Leipzig and theStar of People's Friendship fromWalter Ulbricht. On September 11 in East Berlin she delivered a speech, "Not Only My Victory", praising the GDR and USSR and denouncing American racism.[65][26][66][67]
She visited theBerlin Wall, where she laid flowers at the memorial forReinhold Huhn, an East German guard who had been killed by a man who was trying to escape with his family across the border in 1962. Davis said, "We mourn the deaths of the border guards who sacrificed their lives for the protection of their socialist homeland" and "When we return to the USA, we shall undertake to tell our people the truth about the true function of this border."[65][26][66][67] In 1973, she returned to East Berlin, leading the U.S. delegation to the 10th World Festival of Youth and Students.[68]
In the mid-1970s,Jim Jones, who developed the cultPeoples Temple, initiated friendships with progressive leaders in the San Francisco area includingDennis Banks of theAmerican Indian Movement and Davis.[70] On September 10, 1977, 14 months before the Temple's mass murder-suicide, Davis spoke via amateur radio telephone "patch" to members of his Peoples Temple who were living inJonestown inGuyana.[71][72] In her statement during the "Six Day Siege", she expressed support for the Peoples Temple's anti-racism efforts and she also told Temple members that there was a conspiracy against them. She said, "When you are attacked, it is because of your progressive stand, and we feel that it is directly an attack against us as well."[73] On February 28, 1978, Davis wrote to PresidentJimmy Carter, asking him not to assist in efforts to retrieve a child from Jonestown. Her letter called Jones "a humanitarian in the broadest sense of the word".[74][75]
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and political prisoners in socialist states
In 1975, Soviet dissident andNobel laureateAleksandr Solzhenitsyn argued in a speech before anAFL–CIO meeting in New York City that Davis was derelict in having failed to support prisoners in various socialist countries around the world, given her strong opposition to the U.S. prison system.[76] In 1972,Jiří Pelikán wrote an open letter in which he asked her to support Czechoslovak prisoners;[77][78] Davis refused, believing that the Czechoslovak prisoners were underminingthe government ofHusák and believing that Pelikán, who was living in exile in Italy, was attacking his own country.[79] According to Solzhenitsyn, in response to concerns about Czechoslovak prisoners being "persecuted by the state", Davis had responded: "They deserve what they get. Let them remain in prison."[80]
Davis was a lecturer at the Claremont Black Studies Center at theClaremont Colleges in 1975. Attendance at the course she taught was limited to 26 students out of the more than 5,000 on campus, and she was forced to teach in secret because alumni benefactors did not want her to indoctrinate the general student population with Communist thought.[81] College trustees made arrangements to minimize her appearance on campus, limiting her seminars to Friday evenings and Saturdays, "when campus activity is low".[81]
Her classes moved from one classroom to another and the students were sworn to secrecy. Much of this secrecy continued throughout Davis's brief time teaching at the colleges.[82] In 2020 it was announced that Davis would be the Ena H. Thompson Distinguished Lecturer inPomona College's history department, welcoming her back after 45 years.[83]
In 2014, Davis returned to UCLA as a regents' lecturer. She delivered a public lecture on May 8 inRoyce Hall, where she had given her first lecture 45 years earlier.[36]
In 2016, Davis was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in Healing and Social Justice from theCalifornia Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco during its 48th annual commencement ceremony.[89]
Davis accepted the Communist Party USA's nomination for vice president, asGus Hall's running mate, in1980 and in1984. They received less than 0.02% of the vote in 1980.[90] She left the party in 1991, founding theCommittees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. Her group broke from the Communist Party USA because of the latter's support of the1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt after the fall of the Soviet Union and tearing down of the Berlin Wall.[91] Davis said that she and others who had "circulated a petition about the need for democratization of the structures of governance of the party" were not allowed to run for national office and thus "in a sense ... invited to leave".[92] In 2014, she said she continues to have a relationship with the CPUSA but has not rejoined.[93] In the 2020 presidential election, Davis supported theDemocratic nominee,Joe Biden.[94]
Davis is a major figure in theprison abolition movement.[95] She has called theUnited States prison system the "prison–industrial complex"[96] and was one of the founders ofCritical Resistance, a nationalgrassroots organization dedicated to building a movement to abolish the prison system.[97] In recent works, she has argued that the US prison system resembles a new form of slavery, pointing to the disproportionate share of the African-American population who were incarcerated.[98] Davis advocates focusing social efforts on education and building "engaged communities" to solve various social problems now handled through state punishment.[29]
As early as 1969, Davis began public speaking engagements.[99] She expressed her opposition to theVietnam War, racism, sexism, and the prison–industrial complex, and her support of gay rights and other social justice movements. In 1969, she blamedimperialism for the troubles oppressed populations suffer:
We are facing a common enemy and that enemy is Yankee Imperialism, which is killing us both here and abroad. Now I think anyone who would try to separate those struggles, anyone who would say that in order to consolidate an anti-war movement, we have to leave all of these other outlying issues out of the picture, is playing right into the hands of the enemy.[100]
In 2001, she publicly spoke against thewar on terror following the9/11 attacks, continued to criticize the prison–industrial complex, and discussed the broken immigration system.[108] She said that to solve social justice issues, people must "hone their critical skills, develop them and implement them." Later, in the aftermath ofHurricane Katrina in 2005, she declared that the "horrendous situation in New Orleans" was due to the country's structural racism, capitalism, and imperialism.[109]
Davis opposed the 1995Million Man March, arguing that the exclusion of women from this event promotedmale chauvinism. She said thatLouis Farrakhan and other organizers appeared to prefer that women take subordinate roles in society. Together withKimberlé Crenshaw and others, she formed the African American Agenda 2000, an alliance ofblack feminists.[110]
Davis has continued to oppose thedeath penalty. In 2003, she lectured atAgnes Scott College, a liberal arts women's college inDecatur, Georgia, on prison reform, minority issues, and the ills of the criminal justice system.[111]On October 31, 2011, Davis spoke at the Philadelphia and Washington SquareOccupy Wall Street assemblies. Due to restrictions on electronic amplification, her words werehuman microphoned.[112][113] In 2012, Davis was awarded the 2011Blue Planet Award, an award given for contributions to humanity and the planet.[114]
At the 27th Empowering Women of Color Conference in 2012, Davis said she was avegan.[115] She has called for the release ofRasmea Odeh, associate director at theArab American Action Network, who was convicted of immigration fraud in relation to her hiding of a previous murder conviction.[116][117][118][119][120][121]
On January 7, 2019, theBirmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) rescinded Davis'sFred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award, saying she "does not meet all of the criteria". Birmingham MayorRandall Woodfin and others cited criticism of Davis's vocal support for Palestinian rights and the movement to boycott Israel.[127][128] Davis said her loss of the award was "not primarily an attack against me but rather against the very spirit of the indivisibility of justice."[129] On January 25, the BCRI reversed its decision and issued a public apology, stating that there should have been more public consultation.[130][131]
In November 2019, along with other public figures, Davis signed a letter supportingLabour Party leaderJeremy Corbyn describing him as "a beacon of hope in the struggle against emergent far-right nationalism, xenophobia, and racism in much of the democratic world", and endorsed him in the2019 UK general election.[132]
On January 20, 2020, Davis gave the Memorial Keynote Address at theUniversity of Michigan's MLK Symposium.[133]
In recent years, Davis' work has reflected her concern over the incarceration of poverty-stricken and marginalized groups.[135] In line with this, in December 2020, it was reported that Davis entered into a collaboration with Renowned LA fashion label to create clothing inspired by black activists called “Heroes of Blackness,” where a beneficiary of the fashion line is Underground Grit, a prison reform group.[136]
From 1980 to 1983, Davis was married to Hilton Braithwaite.[1][2] In 1997, she came out as alesbian in an interview withOut magazine.[137] By 2020, Davis was living with her partner, the academicGina Dent,[138] a fellow humanities scholar and intersectional feminist researcher at UC Santa Cruz.[139] Together, they have advocated for the abolition of police and prisons,[140] and for black liberation and Palestinian solidarity.[141]
The first song released in support of Davis was "Angela" (1971), by Italian singer-songwriter and musicianVirgilio Savona with his groupQuartetto Cetra. He received some anonymous threats.[146]
In 1972, German singer-songwriter and political activistFranz Josef Degenhardt published the song "Angela Davis", the opener to his sixth studio albumMutter Mathilde.
TheRolling Stones song "Sweet Black Angel", recorded in 1970 and released on their albumExile on Main Street (1972), is dedicated to Davis. It is one of the band's few overtly political releases.[147] Its lines include: "She's a sweet black angel, not a gun-toting teacher, not a Red-lovin' schoolmarm / Ain't someone gonna free her, a free de sweet black slave, free de sweet black slave".[148][149]
The jazz musicianTodd Cochran, also known as Bayete, recorded his song "Free Angela (Thoughts...and all I've got to say)" in 1972.[151]
Tribe Records co-founderPhil Ranelin released a song dedicated to Davis, "Angela's Dilemma", onMessage From the Tribe (1972), a spiritual jazz collectible.[152]
In 2019,Julie Dash, who is credited as the first black female director to have a theatrical release of a film (Daughters of the Dust) in the US, announced that she would be directing a film based on Davis's life, from a screenplay byBrian Tucker.[153]
In 1971, black playwright Elvie Moore wrote the playAngela is Happening, depicting Davis on trial with figures such asFrederick Douglass,Malcolm X, andH. Rap Brown as eyewitnesses proclaiming her innocence.[157] The play was performed at the Inner City Cultural Center and atUCLA, with Pat Ballard as Davis. The documentaryAngela Davis: Portrait of a Revolutionary (1972) was directed byUCLA Film School student Yolande du Luart.[157][158] It follows Davis from 1969 to 1970, documenting her dismissal from UCLA. The film wrapped shooting before the Marin County incident.[158]
Also in 2018, a cotton T-shirt with Davis's face on it was featured inPrada's 2018 collection.[160]
A mural featuring Davis was painted by Italian street artistJorit Agoch in theScampia neighborhood ofNaples in 2019.[161]
Ms. Davis by Amazing Améziane and Sybille Titeux de la Croix is a graphic biography focusing on Davis's early years and trial. It was published in French in 2020 and in English in 2023.[162]
The Angela Davis mural, painted by San Jose artist Ian S. Young, was unveiled at the African American Community Service Agency (AACSA) in San Jose, CA, on March 18, 2022. Angela Davis participated in the unveiling (Milan Balinton).[163]
Women, Culture & Politics, Vintage (1990),ISBN0-679-72487-7. The essay "Let Us All Rise Together: Radical Perspectives on Empowerment for Afro-American Women" (an address to the National Women's Studies Conference atSpelman College, June 25, 1987) is included inDaughters of Africa (1992), edited byMargaret Busby, pp. 570–77.
An Interview with Angela Davis. Cassette. Radio Free People, New York, 1971.
Myerson, M. "Angela Davis in Prison".Ramparts, March 1971: 20–21.
Seigner, Art.Angela Davis: Soul and Soledad. Phonodisc. Flying Dutchman, New York, 1971.
Walker, Joe.Angela Davis Speaks. Phonodisc. Folkways Records, New York, 1971.[165]
1972–1985
Black Journal; 67; "Interview with Angela Davis", 1972-06-20,WNET. Angela Davis makes her first national television appearance in an exclusive interview with hostTony Brown, following her recent acquittal of charges related to the San Rafael courtroom shootout.[166]
Jet, "Angela Davis Talks about her Future and her Freedom", July 27, 1972: 54–57.
Davis, Angela Y.I Am a Black Revolutionary Woman (1971). Phonodisc. Folkways, New York, 1977.
Phillips, Esther.Angela Davis Interviews Esther Phillips. Cassette. Pacifica Tape Library, Los Angeles, 1977.[167]
Cudjoe, Selwyn.In Conversation with Angela Davis. Videocassette. ETV Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, 1985. 21-minute interview.
1991–1997
A Place of Rage Online. Directed byPratibha Parmar, Kali Films, season-01 1991, vimeo.com/ondemand/aplaceofrage.
Davis, Angela Y. "Women on the Move: Travel Themes in Ma Rainey's Blues", inBorders/diasporas. Sound Recording. University of California, Santa Cruz: Center for Cultural Studies, Santa Cruz, 1992.
Davis, Angela Y.Black Is... Black Ain't. Documentary film. Independent Television Service (ITVS), 1994.
Davis, Angela Y.The Prison Industrial Complex and its Impact on Communities of Color. Videocassette. University of Wisconsin – Madison, Madison, WI, 2000.
Barsamian, D. "Angela Davis: African American Activist on Prison-Industrial Complex".Progressive 65.2 (2001): 33–38.
"September 11 America: an Interview with Angela Davis".Policing the National Body: Sex, Race, and Criminalization. Cambridge, Ma. : South End Press, 2002.
2010–2016
Mountains That Take Wing: Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama – A Conversation on Life, Struggles & Liberation, documentary film released 2010.[169]
The Black Power Mixtape 1967–1975, a documentary film prominently featuring Davis in a number of rarely seen Swedish interviews, was released in 2011.[170]
"Feminism and Abolition: Theories and Practices for the 21st Century", University of Chicago, 2013.
"Activist Professor Angela Davis" episode ofWoman's Hour, BBC Radio 4, December 3, 2014.[171]
Criminal Queers, a fictionalDIY film examining the relationship between the LGBT community and thecriminal justice system, was released in 2015.[172][173]
A Conversation with Dr. Angela Davis. Guest speaker/appearance at the University of California, Santa Barbara, to ask and answer questions surrounding today's government and social dynamics. February 26, 2025.[176]
The National United Committee to Free Angela Davis collection is at the Main Library at Stanford University,Palo Alto, California (A collection of thousands of letters received by the committee and Davis from people in the US and other countries.)[177]
The complete transcript of her trial, including all appeals and legal memoranda, has been preserved in the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Library inBerkeley, California.[178][179]
Records including correspondence, statements, clippings and other documents about Davis's dismissal from theUniversity of California, Los Angeles due to her political affiliation with the Communist Party are archived at UCLA.[157]
^Barbarella Fokos (August 23, 2007)."The Bourgeois Marxist". sandiegoreader.com.Archived from the original on March 31, 2019. RetrievedOctober 21, 2010.
^abcdeDavis, Angela Yvonne (March 1989). "Waters".Angela Davis: An Autobiography. New York City: International Publishers.ISBN0-7178-0667-7.
^abDavis, Angela Yvonne (March 1989). "Flames".Angela Davis: An Autobiography. New York City: International Publishers.ISBN0-7178-0667-7.
^Sawyer, Mark (2006).Racial Politics in Post-Revolutionary Cuba. Los Angeles: University of California. pp. 95–97.
^Hannah, Jim (August 24, 2017)."Revolutionary research".Wright State Newsroom.Archived from the original on October 23, 2020. RetrievedOctober 21, 2020.
^"Czech exile's plea rejected by Miss Davis".The Times. No. 58539. London. July 29, 1972. p. 4.Miss [Charlene] Mitchell, who said she was acting as a spokesman for Miss Davis, took the line that people in Eastern Europe got into difficulties and ended in jail only if they were undermining the government. Those who left to go into political exile were also attacking their own country.
^"Associate Professor".USC Feminist Studies. University of California – Santa Cruz.Archived from the original on June 25, 2021. RetrievedJune 25, 2021.
^Goldsworthy, Rupert (2007).Revolt into style: Images of 1970s West German "terrorists" (Thesis).Archived from the original on February 2, 2017. RetrievedJanuary 28, 2017. "In [Network, there is] a figure seemingly based on Angela Davis, called Laureen Hobbs, a verbose young Black Communist leader..."
Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta,"'Hell, Yes, We Are Subversive'" (review ofAngela Y. Davis,Angela Davis: An Autobiography, Haymarket, 2022, 358 pp.; and Charisse Burden-Stelly andJodi Dean, eds.,Organize, Fight, Win: Black Communist Women's Political Writing, Verso, 2022, 323 pp.),The New York Review of Books, vol. LXIX, no. 14 (September 22, 2022), pp. 58, 60–62.
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