A scholar and an activist; a former political prisoner; a leading philosopher of freedom and a queer Black woman. Those are just a few of the ways to describe Angela Davis. 

Davis was born in 1944 and raised in segregated Alabama. Her earliest politics were sparked by the extreme political, racial and economic injustice she witnessed and were informed by the groups she saw working for change. Among them was the Communist Party, which had a long history of organizing for reforms in the South. 

A brilliant student, Davis received a scholarship to attend a progressive high school in New York City. Her undergraduate education took her to Brandeis University near Boston, where she studied with political theorist Herbert Marcuse. She went on to take courses at the Sorbonne in Paris, then began doctoral work in philosophy in West Germany. 

The burgeoning Black Power movement compelled Davis to return to the United States to join the struggle. She settled in Southern California, working briefly with the Black Panthers before focusing her energies on an all-Black branch of the Communist Party, the Che-Lumumba Club.

With her national visibility increasing, Davis received hate mail and death threats, but she persisted in speaking out. Her work included organizing on behalf of the Soledad Brothers, including George Jackson, author of a book of prison letters, Soledad Brother (1971). Jackson’s teenage brother, Jonathan, accompanied Davis on public appearances as an informal bodyguard. 

On August 7, 1970, in an ill-fated attempt to free his brother who was on trial, Jonathan Jackson took over a Marin County courtroom in Northern California. The ensuing shootout killed Jonathan, the judge and two others. In Jonathan’s possession were guns Davis had purchased for self-protection. 

Given the tense political climate of the era, Davis presumed she would be falsely accused of complicity in the attack. She went underground, culminating in the FBI placing her on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. Captured in October 1970, she was charged with kidnapping and murder. Tried by an all-white jury, she was found not guilty in 1972.

Found innocent and freed from prison in 1972, Angela Davis went on to work as an professor, author and public intellectual. She remained highly engaged in anti-racist and anti-capitalist thinking and organizing, and resumed speaking out against state violence, imperialism and the carceral state.

Five decades later, Angela Davis remains outspoken and is one of the leading philosophers of freedom. Today, Davis also challenges mainstream LGBTQ movements, insisting that we see the military and marriage with a critical eye as institutions tied to sexism, homophobia and capitalism.