Angela Davis

Angela Davis is an activist and an academic, organizing for prison abolition and other causes at the nexus of antiracism, antisexism, anticapitalism, and antiwar.

After studying philosophy in the US and Germany, she moved back to the States to join the growing Black Power movement. She briefly worked with the Black Panthers before joining an all-Black branch of the Communist Party, the Che-Lumumba Club.

In the early 1970s, Davis went into hiding after being falsely accused as an accomplice to a botched courtroom escape that ended with 4 people dead. She was on the FBI's Most Wanted list and was charged with kidnapping and murder. After 18 months in prison, she was acquitted by an all-white jury.

To this day, Davis is a philosopher and activist of freedom. She has expressed dismay at the male chauvinism within the Black Panthers and other activist movements; she has celebrated the feminist, collective organizing of the present-day Occupy and Black Lives Matter movements.

She is a major force behind the abolition of the prison-industrial complex, speaking around the world and challenging people to think critically about our institutions.