Angela Davis
Professor and Activist
Host: Basima Farhat
Previously Aired On: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - Listen to the Show!
Angela Yvonne Davis is an activist, primarily working for racial and gender equality and for prison reform.
Born in Birmingham, Alabama, and a graduate of Brandeis University, Davis worked as a philosophy lecturer at the UCLA during the 1960s, during which time she also was a feminist and activist, a member of both the Communist Party USA and 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. Davis ran for Vice President on the Communist ticket in 1980 and 1984 along with Gus Hall.
In 1970 Davis became the third woman on the FBI’s Most Wanted List when she was charged with conspiracy, kidnapping, and homicide, due to her alleged participation in an escape attempt from Marin County Hall of Justice. She was acquitted of all charges.
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 is currently Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a research focus on Feminism, African American studies, critical theory, popular music culture and social consciousness, philosophy of punishment (women’s jails and prisons).
Quote from ARE PRISONS OBSOLETE by Angela Davis:
“It is my hope that this book will encourage readers to question their own assumptions about the prison. Many people have already reached the conclusion that the death penalty is an outmoded form of punishment that violates basic principles of human rights. It is time, I believe, to encourage similar conversations about the prison. During my own career as an antiprison activist I have seen the population of U.S. prisons increase with such rapidity that many people in black, Latino, and Native American communities now have a far greater chance of going to prison than of getting a decent education. When many young people decide to join the military service in order to avoid the inevitability of a stint in prison, it should cause us to wonder whether we should not try to introduce better alternatives.”
Selected Published Works:
Are Prisons Obsolete?, New York, NY: Seven Stories Press, 2003.
Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and
Billie Holiday, New York: Vintage Books, 1999.
The Angela Y. Davis Reader, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1998.
Angela Davis: An Autobiography, New York: International Publishers, 1989 (original published in 1974 by Random House).
Women, Race, and Class, New York: Vintage Books, 1983.
