Angela Davis

Date of Birth: January 26, 1944

Zodiac Sign: Aquarius

Biography

Angela Yvonne Davis is a renowned American political activist, scholar, author, and educator. Born on January 26, 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama, Davis became a prominent figure in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. She is best known for her association with the Black Panther Party and her involvement in the American Communist Party. Davis grew up in a middle-class African American family and was exposed to the harsh realities of racial segregation and discrimination from an early age. This early exposure to racial injustice fueled her lifelong commitment to fighting for social justice and equality. Davis’s academic journey took her from Brandeis University, where she studied French literature under the tutelage of renowned philosopher Herbert Marcuse, to the University of California, San Diego, where she completed her graduate studies. She later became a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), but her radical political views led to her dismissal, which sparked a national controversy and legal battles. In 1970, Davis was implicated in a high-profile case involving the kidnapping and murder of a judge. She was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List and was captured after a nationwide manhunt. After spending over a year in jail, Davis was acquitted of all charges in 1972. This trial and her subsequent acquittal turned her into an international symbol of resistance against injustice. Throughout her career, Angela Davis has written extensively on issues of race, class, gender, and the U.S. prison system. Her most notable works include “Women, Race, & Class” and “Are Prisons Obsolete?” She continues to be an influential voice in social justice movements, advocating for prison abolition and the intersectionality of struggles against oppression.

5 Interesting Facts about Angela Davis

1. Angela Davis was a member of the Communist Party USA until 1991.

2. She was the first African American woman to appear on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List.

3. Davis has been awarded numerous honorary degrees from universities around the world.

4. Her autobiography, “Angela Davis: An Autobiography,” was published in 1974.

5. Davis was a co-founder of Critical Resistance, an organization dedicated to dismantling the prison-industrial complex.

5 Most Interesting Quotes from Angela Davis

1. “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.”

2. “Radical simply means ‘grasping things at the root.’”

3. “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.”

4. “We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.”

5. “The idea of freedom is inspiring. But what does it mean? If you are free in a political sense but have no food, what is that? The freedom to starve?”