Angela Davis

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Angela Davis
Image:Angela-Davis-Mar-28-2006.jpg
Speaking at the University of Alberta, March 28 2006
BornJanuary 26 1944
Birmingham, Alabama
OccupationProfessor

Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American communist organizer, professor who was associated with the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Davis's main association, however, was her membership in the Communist Party USA. She first achieved nationwide notoriety when she was linked to the murder of Judge Harold Haley during an attempted Black Panther prison break; she fled underground, and was the subject of an intense manhunt. She was eventually captured, arrested, tried, and eventually acquitted in one of the most famous trials in recent U.S. history. She is currently Professor of History of Consciousness at the University of California and Presidential Chair at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She works for racial and gender equality and for prison abolition. Davis is a founder of the anti-prison grassroots organization Critical Resistance.

Contents

Childhood

Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in the midst of Jim Crow laws. Her father was a graduate of St. Augustine's College, a traditionally black college in Raleigh, North Carolina, and was briefly a high school history teacher. After leaving teaching due to the low salary, he owned and operated a service station in the black section of Birmingham. Her mother, also college-educated, was an elementary school teacher with a history of political activism. Despite a modest income, the family purchased a large home in a mixed neighborhood where Angela spent most of her youth. The neighborhood, called "Dynamite Hill" locally, was marked by racial conflict. She was occasionally able to spend time on her uncle's farm and with friends in New York City. [1] Her brother, Ben Davis, played defensive back for the Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

During her childhood, Davis experienced the humiliations of racial segregation. She was bright and begged to enter school early, attending Carrie A. Tuggle School, a black elementary school in dilapidated facilities, and later Parker Annex, a similarly dilapidated annex of Parker High School devoted to middle school education. Davis read voraciously. By her junior year, at 14, she applied to and was accepted by an American Friends Service Committee program that placed Black students from the South in integrated schools in the North. She chose to attend the Elizabeth Irwin High School in Greenwich Village, New York City; a small private school favored by the radical community. There, Davis became acquainted with socialism and communism and was recruited by the communist youth group, Advance. She also met children of the leaders of the Communist Party, including her lifelong friend, Bettina Aptheker.

Education and early career

Undergraduate work Brandeis University

Upon graduation from high school, Davis was awarded a full scholarship to Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, where she was one of three black students in her freshman class. Initially alienated by the isolation of the campus (at that time she was interested in Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre), she soon made friends with the foreign students. She first encountered Herbert Marcuse at a rally during the Cuban Missile Crisis and later became his student. She worked part-time jobs earning money to spend the summer in Europe and attend the eighth World Festival of Youth and Students in Helsinki. That summer, she spent time in Paris and Switzerland before going on to the Festival in Finland, where she and the other young people were strongly impressed by the energetic Cuban delegation. She returned home to an FBI interview about her attendance at the communist-sponsored festival.[2]

During her second year at Brandeis, she decided to major in French and continued her intensive study of Sartre. Davis was accepted by the Hamilton College Junior Year in France Program and managed to talk Brandeis into extending financial support via her scholarship. Classes were initially at Biarritz and later at the Sorbonne. In Paris, she and other students lived with a French family. It was at Biarritz that she received news of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, committed by the KKK, which deeply affected her as she was personally acquainted with the four young victims. That year, there were two Têt (Vietnamese New Year) festivals in Paris, one sponsored by supporters of the South, the other by supporters of the North. Davis attended the festival sponsored by the North which featured a clown dressed as an American GI.[2]

Nearing completion of her degree in French, Davis realized her major interest was philosophy. She became particularly interested in the ideas of Herbert Marcuse and on her return to Brandeis, she audited his course (required French courses precluded enrollment). Marcuse turned out to be approachable and helpful. Davis began making plans to attend the University of Frankfurt for graduate work in philosophy. In 1965 she graduated magna cum laude, a member of Phi Beta Kappa. [2]

Frankfurt, Germany

In Germany, having only a stipend of $100 a month ($656.00 in 2007 dollars) to work with, she had great difficulty finding lodging, but after much looking finally found a place with a sympathetic family. Later, she moved with a group of students into a sort of loft in an old factory building. At the University, weak in German, she had great difficulty following the lectures of philosopher, sociologist and social critic Theodor Adorno but soon found that her fellow students, native German speakers, shared her difficulty. Visiting East Berlin during the May Day celebration, she felt that the East German government was dealing better with the residual effects of fascism than the West Germans. Many of her roommates were active in the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS), a radical student group. Davis participated in actions with them, but as things were happening back in the United States—the formation of the Black Panther Party, for example—she was eager to return.

San Diego, California

Marcuse, in the meantime, had moved to the University of California, San Diego. With the permission of Adorno, she followed him there after two years in Frankfurt. [2]

On her way to California, she stopped off in London to attend a conference on "The Dialectics of Liberation." The small Black contingent included Stokely Carmichael and Michael X, a local West Indian activist. Davis was wearing her trademark afro hairstyle by then and was thus identifiable as a sympathizer with the Black Power movement. Although moved by Stokely Carmichael's fiery rhetoric, she was disappointed by the Black nationalist sentiments of the Black group and their rejection of Communism as a "white man's thing." She held the view that nationalism was a barrier to grappling with the underlying issue, capitalist domination of working people of all races. [3]

Once in San Diego, she earned a master's degree from the University of California, San Diego, returning to Germany for her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the Humboldt University of Berlin, GDR.

UCLA

Davis worked as an acting assistant professor in the philosophy department at the University of California, Los Angeles, beginning in 1969. At that time, she also was a Radical feminist and activist, a member of the Communist Party USA and associated with the Black Panther Party.[4]

In a controversial decision, the Board of Regents of the University of California, urged by then-California Governor Ronald Reagan, fired her from her job in 1969 because of her membership in the Communist Party. She was later rehired after a community uproar.

Notoriety

Image:242663886 05f7155a76 o.jpg
Boston Common demonstration, Boston, 1970
Image:Libertad angela.jpg
Cuban poster saying: "Freedom for Angela Davis," 1971

During the summer of 1970, Davis had become involved in Black Panther efforts to garner support for the imprisoned George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo, and John Clutchette, known as the "Soledad Brothers" (after Soledad Prison, where they were incarcerated). On August 7, George's brother, 17-year-old Jonathon Jackson, along with two others, disrupted trial proceedings in an attempt to assist the escape of friend James McClain from the Marin County Hall of Justice. McClain was on trial for an alleged attempt to stab an officer. In the courthouse, the three stood up from their seats and, at gunpoint, directed everyone to freeze. They then led the judge, the prosecuting attorney, and several jurors into a van parked outside. As the hostages entered the van, Jackson and the others were reported to have shouted, "We want the Soledad Brothers freed by 12:30 today!". During the escape attempt, Jackson and accomplice William Christmas were killed in a shootout with police. Judge Harold Haley was killed by his captors with a shotgun taped to his throat inside the van. Prosecutor Gary Thomas was paralyzed by a police bullet during the incident.

A shotgun used by the escapees was registered in Davis's name, implicating her in the escape attempt. The California warrant issued for Davis charged her as an accomplice to conspiracy, kidnapping, and homicide. On August 18, 1970, Davis became the third woman and the 309th individual to appear on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List.[5]

Detention

Davis fled California and evaded the police for over two months before being captured in New York City. She was tried and acquitted of all charges eighteen months after her capture. Her bail was posted by Rodger McAfee, a farmer from Caruthers, California.

While being held in the Women's Detention Center in New York City, Davis got on well with other inmates and with the help of her outside supporters was able to mobilize the prisoners, in particular, helping to initiate a bail program for indigent prisoners. Initially, she was segregated from the general population, but with the help of her excellent legal team was able in short order to obtain a Federal court order to get out of the segregated area.[6] In 1972, she was exonerated of all charges.

Following release

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.[7]

Russian dissident and Nobel Laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn criticized Davis's sympathy for the Soviet Union in a speech he delivered to the AFL-CIO on July 9, 1975 in New York City, claiming hypocrisy in her attitude toward prisoners under Communist governments. According to Solzhenitsyn, a group of Czech dissidents “addressed an appeal to her: `Comrade Davis, you were in prison. You know how unpleasant it is to sit in prison, especially when you consider yourself innocent. You have such great authority now. Could you help our Czech prisoners? Could you stand up for those people in Czechoslovakia who are being persecuted by the state?' Angela Davis answered: 'They deserve what they get. Let them remain in prison.'”[8]

Later career

Davis ran for Vice President on the Communist ticket in 1980 and 1984 along with Gus Hall. She has continued a career of activism, and has written several books. A principal focus of her current activism is the state of prisons within the United States. She considers herself an abolitionist, not a "prison reformer," and refers to the United States prison system as the "prison-industrial complex." Her solutions include abolishing prisons and addressing the class, race, and gender factors that have led to large numbers of blacks and Latinos being incarcerated.[4]

Davis was one of the primary founders of Critical Resistance, a national grassroots organization dedicated to building a movement to abolish the prison-industrial complex.

She has lectured at San Francisco State University, Stanford University and other schools.[4] She is currently the Presidential Chair and Professor with the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz and director of the Feminist Studies department.[4] She states that in her teaching, which is mostly at the graduate level, she concentrates more on posing questions which encourage development of critical thinking than on imparting knowledge.[4] In 1997, she came out as a lesbian in Out magazine. [9]

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.

Davis is no longer a member of the Communist Party, leaving to help found the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, which broke from the CPUSA due to the latter body's support of the Soviet coup attempt of 1991 and the communist parties of the Warsaw Pact.[10] She remains on the Advisory Board of the Committees.[11] Davis points to Cuba as an example of a country which successfully addresses social and economic problems. In her view democracy and socialism are more compatible than democracy and capitalism.[4]

In recent years, Angela Davis has spoken out against the death penalty. At the University of California, Santa Cruz, she participated in a 2004 panel concerning Kevin Cooper. She also spoke in defense of Stanley "Tookie" Williams on another panel in 2005. Davis remains a prominent figure in the struggle against the death penalty in California.

She was the commencement speaker at Grinnell College in May, 2007. On October 27, Davis was the keynote speaker at the 5th annual Practical Activism Conference at UC Santa Cruz. [12]

In pop culture

In 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono released the song "Angela" about her and the Rolling Stones released "Sweet Black Angel," both of which chronicled her legal problems and advocated for her release. The 1976 film Network features a parody of her in its character Laureen Hobbs.

Davis appears as a minor character in American Pastoral by Philip Roth.

Quotes

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  • "Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation."
  • "Imprisonment has become the response of first resort to far too many of our social problems."
  • "It is both humiliating and humbling to discover that a single generation after the events that constructed me as a public personality, I am remembered as a hairdo."[13]
  • "Where cultural representations do not reach out beyond themselves, there is the danger that they will function as the surrogates for activism, that they will constitute both the beginning and the end of political practice."[14]

Bibliography

Notes

  1. ^ Davis, Angela Yvonne (March 1989). "Rocks", Angela Davis: An Autobiography. New York City: International Publishers. ISBN 0717-80667-7. 
  2. ^ a b c d Davis, Angela Yvonne (March 1989). "Waters", Angela Davis: An Autobiography. New York City: International Publishers. ISBN 0717-80667-7. 
  3. ^ Davis, Angela Yvonne (March 1989). "Flames", Angela Davis: An Autobiography. New York City: International Publishers. ISBN 0717-80667-7. 
  4. ^ a b c d e f "Interview with Angela Davis". BookTV. 2004-10-03.
  5. ^ "Biography" (HTML). Davis (Angela) Legal Defense Collection, 1970-1972. Retrieved on 2007-06-21.
  6. ^ Davis, Angela Yvonne (March 1989). "Nets", Angela Davis: An Autobiography. New York City: International Publishers. ISBN 0717-80667-7. 
  7. ^ Gott, Richard (2004). Cuba: A New History. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, p. 230. ISBN 0-300-10411-1. 
  8. ^ Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr (October 1976). Warning to the West. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pp. 60-61. ISBN 0374513341. 
  9. ^ "Angela Davis" (HTML). Notable name database. Retrieved on 2007-07-21.
  10. ^ "(title unknown)", Corresponder, Committees of Correspondence, 1992. 
  11. ^ "Advisory board" (HTML). Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism website. Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (2007-07-20). Retrieved on 2007-07-20.
  12. ^ Santa Cruz Indymedia coverage of the 5th annual Practical Activism Conference at UC Santa Cruz.
  13. ^ "Afro Images: Politics, Fashion, and Nostalgia" Critical Inquiry. Vol. 21, No. 1 (Autumn, 1994), pp. 37-39, 41-43 and 45.
  14. ^ "Black Nationalism: The Sixties and the Nineties." Black Popular Culture, ed. Gina Dent (Seattle, Wash: Bay Press, 1992), 324.

External links

About Angela Davis

Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement

Related Links

Preceded by
Jarvis Tyner 		Communist Party USA Vice Presidential candidate
1980 (lost), 1984 (lost) 		Succeeded by
—


References

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