It is an honor for me to talk and write about Angela Davis for she has undergone a lot during segregation and overcame all that. I had heard of this woman who has fought for a plethora of causes in the U.S.. So as to to help you find summarized, yet interesting information about her life and deeds, I have selected this excellent material to share with you based on Bio and some of my early African-American History studies and research.
Angela Davis is an activist, scholar and writer who advocates for the oppressed. She has written a number of books, including Women, Culture & Politics and Women, Race & Class. Ms. Davis was born on January 26, 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama. She became a master scholar who studied at the Sorbonne. Afterwards she decided to join the U.S. Communist Party and was arrested for charges related to a prison outbreak. She has worked as a professor and activist and some of her struggles are regarding gender equity, prison reform and alliances across color lines.
Ms. Davis is known worldwide for being a radical African-American educator and activist for civil rights and other social issues. She was schooled on racial prejudice from her experiences with discrimination growing up in Alabama during the 1950’s and 1960’s. As a teenager, she organized interracial study groups, which were broken up by the police. She also knew several of the young African-American girls killed in the Birmingham church bombing of 1963.
Davis, in prison, talks about the Black Panther Party, co-founded by Huey P. Newton, and the Bombing in Birmingham on the video below:
She went to Brandeis University in Massachusetts where she studied philosophy. As a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego, in the late 1960s, she joined several groups, including the Black Panthers, the group founded by Huey P. Newton in 1966. She was hired at the University of California, Los Angeles as a professor, However, Davis ran into trouble with the school’s administration on the account of her association with communism. She was fired later on, but she fought them in court and got her job back.
After spending time traveling and lecturing, Professor Davis returned to teaching. Today, she is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she teaches courses on the History of Consciousness.
Has her ideas changed? Has her approaches changed? Well, you might see it for yourself. Watch this interesting video down below. Ms. Davis talks about the influence of Malcom X in her life at Oxford Union. She cites Du Bois and Marcus Garvey and the Nation of Islam.
Hope you all could learn a little bit about this interesting and strong woman. Would you like to have classes with her? What would you like to talk to her about?
This material has been selected, adapted, and put together by Rodrigo P. Honorato
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