Angela
Davis

Details

Biography
Topics
African Americans
Art & Politics
Civil Rights Movement
Economy/Economic Visions
Education
Electoral Politics
Human Rights
Multiculturalism
Prisons/Prison Industrial Complex/Police
Racism/Racial Justice
U.S. Foreign Policy
U.S. History
Violence Against Women
Women & Feminism
Youth/Student Activism

Through her activism and scholarship over the last decades, Angela Davis has been deeply involved in our nation’s quest for social justice. Her work as an educator – both at the university level and in the larger public sphere – has always emphasized the importance of building communities of struggle for economic, racial, and gender justice.

Professor Davis’ teaching career has taken her to San Francisco State University, Mills College, and UC Berkeley. She also has taught at UCLA, Vassar, the Claremont Colleges, and Stanford University. She spent the last fifteen years at the University of California, Santa Cruz where she is now Distinguished Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness, an interdisciplinary Ph.D program, and of Feminist Studies.

Angela Davis is the author of nine books and has lectured throughout the United States as well as in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America. In recent years a persistent theme of her work has been the range of social problems associated with incarceration and the generalized criminalization of those communities that are most affected by poverty and racial discrimination. She draws upon her own experiences in the early seventies as a person who spent eighteen months in jail and on trial, after being placed on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted List.” Davis has also conducted extensive research on numerous issues related to race, gender and imprisonment. Her most recent book is Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement

Davis is a founding member Critical Resistance, a national organization dedicated to the dismantling of the prison industrial complex.  Internationally, she is affiliated with Sisters Inside, an abolitionist organization based in Queensland, Australia that works in solidarity with women in prison.

Like many other educators, Professor Davis is especially concerned with the general tendency to devote more resources and attention to the prison system than to educational institutions. Having helped to popularize the notion of a “prison industrial complex,” she now urges her audiences to think seriously about the future possibility of a world without prisons and to help forge a 21st century abolitionist movement.


 

Testimonials

"The crowd was extremely comfortable with Dr. Davis... She was very engaging and incorporated both her personal experiences and anti-oppressive theories. We loved her, she is very humble and very respected and respectful."

— Heather Kere, Ryerson Student Union, Ryerson University

"Angela Davis has stood as a courageous voice of conscience on matters of race, class, and gender in America."

— David Theo Goldberg, Arizona State University

"Angela Davis offers a cartography of engagement in oppositional social movements and unwavering commitment to justice."

— Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Women's Studies, Hamilton College

"Long before 'race/gender' became the obligatory injunction it is now Angela Davis was developing an analytical framework that brought all of these factors into play. For those who only see Angela Davis as a public icon . . . meet the real Angela Davis: perhaps the leading public intellectual of our era."

— Robin D. G. Kelley author and cultural critic


 

Speeches
  • Education or Incarceration?
  • Institutional Racism in the Penal and Criminal Justice System
  • Abolitionist Movements in the 21st Century
  • Violence Against Women and the Ongoing Challenge to Racism
  • Frameworks for Radical Feminism in the 21st Century
  • The Role of Art in Society
  • Democracy and Civil Engagement
Media