Angela Davis

She has been deeply involved in movements for economic, racial, and gender justice over many decades and and was an active member in the Communist Party and the Black Panther Party.

Davis attended Brandeis University in Massachusetts where she studied philosophy with Herbert Marcuse. She was a graduate student at the University of California, where she went on to teach. 

Beginning in 1969, Davis was an acting assistant professor in the philosophy department, but was fired for her membership to the Communist Party. After her removal was found to be illegal, she resumed her role but was fired again in 1970 for use of inflammatory language in her speeches.

In 1970, she was arrested for her involvement with the Soledad Brothers. Her imprisonment was met with a nationwide response, with thousands of people organising a movement to gain her release. John Lennon and Yoko Ono released the song 'Angela' in response. In 1972, she was released.

She undertook an international speaking tour before returning to teaching. Davis was a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she taught courses on the history of consciousness, retiring in 2008. 

In recent years, a persistent theme of her work has been the social problems associated with criminalisation and imprisonment. She is a founding member of Critical Resistance, which is dedicated to the dismantling of the prison industrial complex.

Her research interests include feminism, critical theory, Marxism and the philosophy and history of punishment and prisons.