Angela Davis’s Life’s Work Is Exposing State Repression
Angela Davis became world-famous in her twenties when the FBI put her on its most wanted list. Since securing her freedom, Davis has worked for half a century to expose the practice of repression in formally democratic states like the US.
Angela Davis speaks at Mills College on October 23, 1969, after getting fired from UCLA for her communist politics. (Duke Downey / the San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
At the age of twenty-six, Angela Davis became one of the world’s most famous political prisoners and a revolutionary icon, her image as recognizable as that of Mao Zedong or Che Guevara. The circumstances that led to her imprisonment were complex and partly contrived.
In August 1970, several guns that were registered in Davis’s name had been brandished in an attempt to liberate three incarcerated black men at a courthouse in Marin County, California. After San Quentin prison guards opened fire, four people were killed, including a district judge. Davis had no prior knowledge of the events, but she was implicated on account of the guns.
More significantly, she was a known member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and a rising black activist: the state wanted her dead or locked up. It issued an arrest warrant on charges of conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder, which carried the death penalty, and Davis was placed on the FBI’s most wanted list.
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