Angela Davis

Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an African American radical activist, primarily working for racial and gender equity and for prison abolition.

Education and early career

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 into Camus and Sartre), she soon made friends with the foreign students on campus. She first encountered Herbert Marcuse at a rally during the Cuban Missile Crisis and later became his student. She worked at part-time jobs earning money to spend her summer in Europe and attend the eighth World Festival for 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 Festival which the government considered communist sponsored.

Related Topics:
Brandeis University - Waltham, Massachusetts - Camus - Sartre - Herbert Marcuse - Cuban Missile Crisis - World Festival for Youth and Students - Helsinki - Paris - Switzerland - Finland - Cuba - FBI

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During her second year, she decided to major in French and continued her intensive study of Sartre. Malcolm X appeared at the Brandeis campus that year and strongly castigated his mostly White audience. Davis was accepted for the Hamilton College Junior Year in France Program and managed to talk Brandeis into extending support with her scholarship to cover the expenses. Classes were initially at Biarritz and later at the Sorbonne. In Paris, she lived together with other students with a French family. It was at Biarritz that she received news of the Birmingham church bombing which deeply affected her as she was personally acquainted with the four young victims. Again, as at Brandeis, she was socially isolated; all the other students were Whites who could offer sympathy but did not share her grief. That year President Kennedy was assassinated and there were two Têt, Vietnamese New Year, festivals in Paris, one sponsored by supporters of the South, one by supporters of the North. Davis attended the festival sponsored by the North which featured a clown dressed as an American GI.

Related Topics:
French - Sartre - Malcolm X - Hamilton College - Biarritz - Sorbonne - Birmingham church bombing - President Kennedy - Têt - South - North

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Nearing completion of her degree in French language, she realized her major interest was philosophy. Herbert Marcuse had been at the Sorbonne the year before she attended and there was a good buzz about him. On 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.

Related Topics:
Philosophy - Herbert Marcuse - University of Frankfurt - Magna cum laude - Phi Beta Kappa

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In Germany, having only a stipend of $100 a month to work with and facing the unreconstructed social attitudes of the West Germans, she had great difficulty finding lodging, but after much looking finally found a place with a sympathetic family, later moving 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 Adorno but soon found that her fellow students, native Germans, 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 German Socialist Student League, SDS, a radical student group. Davis participated in actions with them; but things were happening back in the United States, for example, the Black Panther Party, and she was eager to get back. Marcuse in the meantime had moved to the University of California at San Diego. With the permission of Adorno, she followed him there after two years in Frankfurt.

Related Topics:
Loft - German - Adorno - East Berlin - May Day - East German - Fascism - West Germans - German Socialist Student League - Black Panther Party - University of California at San Diego

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On her way to California, she stopped off in London to attend a conference centered on the theme of "The Dialectics of Liberation." The small Black contingent included Stokely Carmichael and Michael X a local West Indian activist. Davis was sporting her trademark natural 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 contingent 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.

Related Topics:
London - Dialectics - Stokely Carmichael - Michael X - West Indian - Natural hairstyle - Black Power movement - Black nationalist

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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 Davis worked as a philosophy lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles, during the 1960s, during which time she also was a radical feminist and activist, a member of the Communist Party USA and associated with the Black Panther Party. In a controversial decision, the University of California fired her from her job in 1969 because of her membership in the Communist Party. She was later rehired after community uproar over the decision. Davis ran for Vice President on the Communist ticket in 1980 and 1984 along with Gus Hall.

Related Topics:
Master's degree - Humboldt University of Berlin - GDR - University of California, Los Angeles - 1960s - Feminist - Communist Party USA - Black Panther Party - University of California - 1969 - 1980 - 1984 - Gus Hall

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