Academia

Angela Davis is currently a tenured professor in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz[1] . In 1994, she received the distinguished honor of an appointment to the University of California Presidential Chair in African American and Feminist Studies. Davis’ other academic interests include critical theory, popular music culture and social consciousness, and the philosophy of punishment.

Early Education

Both of Angela Davis’ parents were college educated. Her mother was a teacher and her father, before going into business for himself, also taught. Due to superior academic achievement during high school, Davis was able to attend the Elizabeth Irwin High School in New York City where she was exposed to and became interested in communist and socialist philosophies. Davis’ work in high school earned her a scholarship to Brandies University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Although she studied French, Davis’ interest in philosophy was peaked after studying with Herbert Marcuse[2], a prominent Marxist scholar and author of the One-Dimensional Man (1964), an influential critique of capitalist society.

Graduate Study

After graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Brandeis in 1965, Davis received a scholarship to study philosophy at the Goethe Institute in Frankfurt. After two years, upon her return to the United States, Davis began to study under Marcuse as a graduate student at the University of California at San Diego. She received her masters in San Diego and subsequently returned to Germany to receive her PhD in philosophy from the Humboldt University of Berlin. During the 1960s, Davis worked as a lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles. She was becoming increasingly involved with politically active organizations including the Black Panther Party and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1968 she officially became a member of the United States Communist Party[3] and joined one of its local affiliates, the Che-Lumumba Club.

Faculty Appointment and Controversy

After teaching for a year in order to receive her doctorate, Davis received a faculty appointment at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her appointment, however, was challenged due to her membership in the Communist Party. California regulations did not allow Communists to teach in California state universities. The university’s governing body, the Board of Regents, and the governor, Ronald Reagan, attempted to fire her. Davis contested her dismissal in court and won. Despite this legal victory, Davis was fired due to her alleged complicity with an attempted prison break from the Marin County’s Hall of Justice on August 7, 1970, that resulted in the death of three people and a trial judge.

Later Career

After she was acquitted of the charges stemming from the August 7, 1970 incident, Davis taught black philosophy and women's studies at San Francisco State College. Since then she has lectured in all 50 US states as well as throughout Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and Russia. In 1980 and 1984 she ran on the Communist Party ticket for vice president of the United States with Gus Hall. By 1983 she was working with the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression and had been awarded an honorary doctorate from Lenin University.

Professional Success

Despite objections from the Republican party due to her radical activism, Davis was appointed as the Presidential Chair at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1994 where she currently works as a tenured professor in the History of Consciousness Department[4] and the head of the Women’s Studies Department[5].

Scholarly Texts

Women, Race & Class (1983)

from Amazon.com

an expose of the women's movement in the context of the fight for civil rights and working class issues. She uncovers a side of the fight for suffrage many of us have not heard: the intimate tie between the anti-slavery campaign and the struggle for women's suffrage. She shows how the racist and classist bias of some in the women's movement have divided its own membership. Davis' message is clear: If we ever want equality, we're gonna have to fight for it together.

Women, Culture and Politics (1990)

Amazon.com Book Description

A collection of her speeches and writings which address the political and social changes of the past decade as they are concerned with the struggle for racial, sexual, and economic equality.

Blues Legacies & Black Feminism (1999)

from Publisher's Weekly

Davis finds, in the work of three pivotal artists of the blues and jazz era, "rich terrain for examining a historical feminist consciousness that reflected the lives of working-class black communities." Through her close readings of their lyrics, which she transcribed (and presents as the book's second half), Davis explores the meanings behind the performances of Gertrude "Ma" Rainey and Bessie Smith. Toppling the prevailing image of the tragic blues woman, she finds that the songs don't portray the desolate and deserted woman; rather, "the most frequent stance assumed by the women in these songs is independence and assertiveness,indeed defiance, bordering on and sometimes erupting into violence." She also offers ample evidence to dispute claims that women's blues were personal, not political, arguing that their songs created consciousness by naming the issues.

Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)

Amazon.com Book Description

Amid rising public concern about the proliferation and privitization of prisons, and their promise of enormous profits, world-renowned author and activist Angela Y. Davis argues for the abolition of the prison system as the dominant way of responding to America’s social ills. “In thinking about the possible obsolescence of the prison,” Davis writes, “we should ask how it is that so many people could end up in prison without major debates regarding the efficacy of incarceration.”