Angela Yvonne Davis was born on January 26, 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama. She is an American political activist and university professor who was associated with the Black Panther Party for Self Defense and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Davis was also a notable activist during the Civil Rights Movement, and a prominent member and political candidate of the Communist Party USA. In recent years, she no longer identifies as a Communist, but rather a democratic socialist, and is currently a member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.
She first achieved nationwide notoriety when a weapon registered in her name was linked to the murder of Judge Harold Haley during an effort to free a black convict who was being tried for the attempted retaliatory murder of a white prison guard who killed three unarmed black inmates. Davis fled underground and was the subject of an intense manhunt. Davis was eventually captured, arrested, tried, and then acquitted in one of the most famous trials in recent U.S. history.
In 1972, eighteen months after her capture, she was tried and acquitted of all charges; the mere fact that she owned one of the guns used in the crime was not sufficient to establish her responsibility for the plot. Following her release, Davis temporarily relocated to Cuba following in the footsteps of fellow radicals Huey Newton and Stokely Carmichael. Her reception by Afro-Cubans at a mass rally was so enthusiastic that she was reportedly barely able to speak.
Davis spoke out against the 1995 Million Man March, arguing that the exclusion of women from this event necessarily promoted male chauvinism and that the organizers, including Louis Farrakhan, preferred women to take subordinate roles in society. In response to the March, and together with Kimberlé Crenshaw and others, she formed the African American Agenda 2000, a small alliance of Black feminists.
In 1972, eighteen months after her capture, she was tried and acquitted of all charges; the mere fact that she owned one of the guns used in the crime was not sufficient to establish her responsibility for the plot. Following her release, Davis temporarily relocated to Cuba following in the footsteps of fellow radicals Huey Newton and Stokely Carmichael. Her reception by Afro-Cubans at a mass rally was so enthusiastic that she was reportedly barely able to speak.
Davis spoke out against the 1995 Million Man March, arguing that the exclusion of women from this event necessarily promoted male chauvinism and that the organizers, including Louis Farrakhan, preferred women to take subordinate roles in society. In response to the March, and together with Kimberlé Crenshaw and others, she formed the African American Agenda 2000, a small alliance of Black feminists.
