Angela Y. Davis
Political activist, philosopher and academic
Angela Y. Davis is an American activist, philosopher and academic. Her research covers feminism, African American studies and the history of prisons.
1 summary 15 min of listening
American Born 1944 in Birmingham, United States
About Angela Y. Davis
Angela Yvonne Davis was born on January 26, 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama. She attended Brandeis University and the University of Frankfurt before joining the Communist Party USA. She ran for Vice President on that party's ticket in 1980 and 1984. In 1970 she was prosecuted after an armed courtroom takeover in Marin County, California, involving guns she owned. She was acquitted of all charges in 1972. Davis co-founded Critical Resistance in 1997, an organization working to abolish the prison-industrial complex. She joined the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1991 and retired in 2008, and she is now Distinguished Professor Emerita there. In 2020, Time magazine named her among its 100 most influential people worldwide. Her book in our catalog is Women, Race and Class.