Socialist Spotlight: Angela Davis - Las Vegas DSA (2024)

This is the first post in our newest series, Socialist Spotlight. We hope to promote greater learning about socialism, and the activists and thinkers who have pushed it forward. We’re starting by highlighting a variety of Black socialists. We want to acknowledge the important work BIPOC socialists have done to advance the cause.

Today’s Socialist Spotlight is Angela Davis, a feminist, Marxist, abolitionist, and a pivotal figure in the Black liberation movement. We hope you enjoy learning about her and take some time to explore her work further in the resources provided.

Socialist Spotlight: Angela Davis - Las Vegas DSA (1)Angela Davis is many things: socialist, philosopher, activist, feminist—the list goes on— and at seventy-six, she continues to play these many roles (her commentary on recent police murders of Black people, among other subjects, has been extremely incisive. See, e.g., her recent interview on Democracy Now!). In each of her roles, properly characterizing Davis’ importance would fill volumes, and there are such volumes (see, e.g., the Angela Davis Reader).

A staunch Black feminist, a member of the Communist Party, and affiliated with the Black Panthers, Angela Davis quickly became viewed as a radical. In 1970, she was branded a terrorist, making it on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted List. She was arrested and jailed for 18 months before eventually being acquitted. Her real-world experiences and philosophical work are married in her abolitionist position.

Her academic work ranges from extremely abstract to concrete and everywhere in between. Davis’ academic career began, or took off, on the abstract side of things, studying with the German Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse whose work was, at times, extremely theoretical, like many European Marxist academics whose work flourished in the interwar period. Davis helped to launch the philosophical literature on Frederick Douglass, and she has written on a wide array of political topics.

On many of these topics, there is a kind of unity to her approach as an activist and intellectual that provides a paradigm and model from which members of organizations like the DSA and the left generally can learn from and follow. Davis’ activism and scholarship is concretely intersectional. For example, Davis has criticized one of Joe Biden’s advertised feminist bona fides, the Violence Against Women Act because it was part of the infamous 1994 crime bill, a key contributor to the American carceral state.

Especially relevant in the moment, Davis has also consistently supported and spearheaded abolitionism over reform for both prisons and the police. Davis has been clear that abolitionism doesn’t simply mean abolishing something and leaving everything else the same—rather it involves abolishing some institution (e.g. prisons) and investing those resources towards socially productive ends—a process that involves extensive societal reimagining. The reader may have heard criticisms that such radical reimagining are utopian and unrealistic.

Socialist Spotlight: Angela Davis - Las Vegas DSA (2)

In Davis’ recent Democracy Now! interview, she provides the following council, excellent advice for the left during this critical moment:

“But I’ve often said one never knows when conditions may give rise to a conjuncture such as the current one that rapidly shifts popular consciousness and suddenly allows us to move in the direction of radical change. If one does not engage in the ongoing work when such a moment arises, we cannot take advantage of the opportunities to change. And, of course, this moment will pass. The intensity of the current demonstrations cannot be sustained over time, but we will have to be ready to shift gears and address these issues in different arenas, including, of course, the electoral arena.”

Books

If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance by Angela Davis (1971)

Angela Davis: An Autobiographyby Angela Davis (1974)

Joan Little: The Dialectics of Rape by Angela Davis (1975)

Women, Race, & Class by Angela Davis (1981)

Women, Culture & Politics by Angela Davis (1989)

The Angela Y. Davis Reader ed. Joy James (1998)

Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday by Angela Davis (1998)

Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis (2003)

Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire by Angela Davis (2005)

The Meaning of Freedom: And Other Difficult Dialogues by Angela Davis (2012)

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Davis (2016)

Video

Angela Davis on Abolition, Calls to Defund Police, Toppled Racist Statues & Voting in 2020 Election

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (documentary)

Black is… Black Ain’t (documentary)

Criminal Queers (documentary)

13th (documentary)

Audio

Collection of Angela Davis speeches on Spotify

BBC Woman’s Hour: Angela Davis

Socialist Spotlight: Angela Davis - Las Vegas DSA (2024)

FAQs

Was Angela Davis a black panther? ›

At that time she was known as a radical feminist and activist, a member of the Communist Party USA, and an affiliate of the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panther Party.

What did Angela Davis fight for? ›

Angela returned to teaching and published several books. She lent her ideas and her voice to a variety of issues. She spoke out about prison reform, women's rights, racial equality, and the inequality of capitalism. Angela was also an advocate for the LGBTQ community and came out as a lesbian in the late 1990s.

What country does Angela Davis live in? ›

Who is Angela Davis' sister? ›

In the 1940s, three remarkable young girls grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, in the Black neighbourhood nicknamed Dynamite Hill. All three became central voices in the civil rights movement: Angela Davis; her sister, Fania Davis; and Margaret Burnham.

What is Angela Davis' famous quote? ›

Angela Davis Quote: I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.

Who is the 90 year old woman in Black Panther? ›

Dorothy Steel entered the acting profession at the age of 88

Dorothy Steel, 92, plays a merchant tribal elder in Marvel's blockbuster “Black Panther.”

Why is Angela Davis important to women's history? ›

Angela Davis is a founding member of 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 incarcerated women.

Who was Angela Davis' mother? ›

Which event in the Jim Crow South did Angela Davis recall from her childhood? ›

Final answer: Angela Davis likely recalls the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing from her childhood during the Jim Crow era, a significant event that deeply affected the Civil Rights Movement and its supporters.

What schools did Angela Davis teach at? ›

Today she is Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies Departments at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

What are some important facts about Angela Davis? ›

Angela Davis (b. 1944) is an American political activist, professor, and author who was an active member in the Communist Party and the Black Panther Party. She is most famous for her involvement with the Soledad brothers, who were accused of killing a prison guard.

What was the sexism in the civil rights movement? ›

The sexism that was present in the Civil Rights Movement was a continuation of oppressive mentality that existed in the larger U.S. culture, which was and is a white, male-dominated culture. Movement leaders set out to tackle one specific type of oppression -- racism -- focusing primarily on racial segregation.

What did Angela Davis do for the civil rights movement? ›

Angela Yvonne Davis is a prominent political activist, scholar, and author. She emerged as the leader of Communist Party USA in the 1960s and had close ties to the Black Panther Party. She has advocated for the abolishment of prisons and the prison-industrial complex.

Who is Angela Davis descended from? ›

"I'm happy to find that there's a motif of resistance (in my family tree) because that is what I feel like I've been trying to do since I was a teenager," she says. At the end of the episode, Davis also learns she's descended from William Brewster, one of the 101 people who came to the colonies aboard the Mayflower.

Is Michaela Angela Davis related to Angela Davis? ›

Michaela Angela Davis and Angela Yvonne Davis are not related. Michaela was born in Germany in 1964 to mixed-race American parents, and Yvonne was born in Alabama in 1944 in a middle-class black American family. Both women are African American icons, political activists, intellectuals, and authors.

Who was the famous black woman Black Panther? ›

Of course, some Panther women became well known publicly. Kathleen Cleaver, Erica Huggins, Elaine Brown and Assata Shakur are among the better known women of the party.

Who was the first black Black Panther? ›

BashengaBlack Panther

Ages ago, the wise and fearless Bashenga becomes the first Black Panther, and chieftain of the Wakandans—a tradition that continues into modern day.

Who are the original Black Panthers? ›

In late October 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense). In formulating a new politics, they drew on their work with a variety of Black Power organizations.

Who was the black woman who find out her ancestors were on the Mayflower? ›

Angela Davis was shocked to learn that her ancestors came to America on the Mayflower, making her descendants of people who helped found the country. The civil rights activist learned about this news during the Feb. 21 episode of PBS's Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

References

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