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Welcome to Civics and Coffee. My name is Alicia and I am a self professed history nerd. Each week I'm going to chat about a topic on US History and give you both the highlights and occasionally break down some of the complexities in history and share stories you may not remember learning in high school. All in the time it takes to enjoy a cup of coffee. Hey everyone, welcome back. On this bonus edition of Wonder Women Wednesday, I am diving into the life of Angela Davis. This suggestion came to me on Twitter by the user cuteweirdhistory and I was immediately excited. Angela Davis for me, as someone who had name recognition but whose details I was unfamiliar with. So who is Angela Davis and where does she fall in the timeline of history? Grab your cup of coffee peeps. Let's do this. Angela Davis was born on January 26, 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama. Growing up in the Jim Crow South, Davis was raised in an area known as Dynamite Hill. The neighborhood garnered this rather macabre nickname thanks to the number of bombings perpetrated by individuals who were trying to scare black families out of the suburbs. Her mother was a national officer and organizer of the Southern Negro Youth Congress, which was heavily influenced by communist ideology. Davis, who today classifies herself as a democratic socialist, points to her upbringing for how her political beliefs developed. Davis also cites her time as a Girl Scout as the jumping off point of her political activism. As a Girl Scout, Davis joined protests against segregation in her hometown of Birmingham because nothing screams political activism more than a Girl Scout. Although they come out hard during cookie season, so I better watch my P's and Q's. Much respect ladies. Davis moved up north to attend college, enrolling in Brandeis University in Massachusetts. As a student, Davis gravitated towards the study of philosophy and met famed philosopher Herbert Marcuse at a rally during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Marcuse became somewhat of an early mentor to Davis and gave her insight on being an activist, academic and revolutionary. Incredibly interested in and fascinated by the Communist Party usa, Davis worked part time so she could journey across the pond to attend the World Festival of Youth and Students held in Helsinki, Finland. The festival was put on by the World Federation of Democratic Youth and the International Union of Students. Their platform was committed to being anti imperialist and aimed to establish friendships between the youth of capitalist and socialist nations. And while the Red Scare had more or less ended the decade prior, there was still a heightened awareness and fear of the spread of Communism. And so when she returned to the United States, Davis had a few FBI agents waiting to greet and interview her Nothing says Welcome back more than a greeting by the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Am I right? This would be her first, but certainly not last run in with the Bureau. After completing graduate study and earning her PhD in Philosophy from Humboldt University in Germany, Dr. Davis began teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1969. At the time, Republican Ronald Reagan was governor of California and was adamantly opposed to Davis's hiring. He pressured the Board of Regents to fire Davis due to her unapologetic interest in and support for the Communist Party usa. This was illegal, of course, and so Davis was reinstated. However, the pressure from the Governor's office continued and Davis was later fired for using what was framed as incendiary language due to her calling police officers pigs. Reagan would go on to say that Davis would never work in the UC system again, but it is perhaps her connection with the Soledad Brothers case that Davis is most known for. On August 7, 1970, Joshua Jackson attempted to kidnap a judge in a strange plot to negotiate the release of his brother from jail Jail that morning, Jackson entered the Marin County Civic center and headed to the courtroom where James McLean was being arraigned for the stabbing of a prison guard. Shortly after proceedings began, Jackson opened a satchel where he produced several weapons and working with the defendant, James McLean proceeded to take Judge Haley and five other court members hostage. Once their captives were secured, Jackson, McLean and two other assailants moved with their hostages towards the corridor, demanding that the Soledad Brothers be released by 12:30 that afternoon. Using the captives as shields, the kidnappers made it to their awaiting van and started toward the highway with a plan of getting on a plane. Once their demands were met, the police were prepared for an attempted flee and set up roadblocks preventing the van from accessing the highway. A confrontation ensued resulting in the death of Judge Haley as well as three of the kidnappers, including mastermind Jackson. I divest from the story here to share a little bit of personal history. I have actually been to the Marin Civic Center a number of times, including a visit to obtain my marriage license. I remember hearing about the story when I was younger and it always baffled me to know that a hostage situation had taken place at the same spot I signed papers to get married. Also, the building has not changed much at all. It's like a piece of history stuck in time. But anyways, getting back so what does the story of the attempted kidnapping have to do with Angela Davis? Well, the guns were registered in her name and though she was not present for the events, under California law, she was considered responsible as the gun owner and was subsequently charged with first degree murder in the death of Judge Harold Haley. Davis heard of the charges and went immediately into hiding while the FBI placed her on their most wanted list. Davis was just the third woman to ever be added to this list, and she was able to successfully evade the authorities for a few months before her capture in New York on October 13, 1970. Upon her arrest, President Richard Nixon congratulated the bureau for apprehending the dangerous terrorist Angela Davis, end quote. Appearing in court on January 5, 1971, Davis pleaded not guilty. She was initially remanded and placed into solitary confinement. Almost immediately, there was a nationwide effort to get her released. The endeavor gained the attention of some pretty famous individuals, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who released the song Angela. Her lawyers argued during the trial that her ownership of the weapons was not sufficient evidence to establish her knowledge of or involvement in the kidnapping plot. The jury agreed and Davis was acquitted on June 4, 1972. Davis spent a total of 16 months in jail. Her acquittal led to an international speaking tour where she spoke of her communist leanings and decried American racism. To her, communism as a political system was the key to ending racism in the United States. She would speak on this belief throughout her overseas lectures and made trips to several countries that had less than friendly dealings with the United States, including Cuba and the Soviet Union. In 1972, Dr. Davis was being interviewed and shared why she felt communism and black liberation were tied.
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What you're saying, I take it then, is that it is simply impossible to separate the activities of the Communist party from the activities of the black liberation movement. Is that what you're saying? Well, certainly. I mean, otherwise, if, as I said before, if I felt that the interests of the party and black people conflicted in any way, I wouldn't be a member of the party because I'm interested first and foremost in the liberation of my people. And I feel that the policy of the party, as well as the practice, has been the only consistently correct approach to black liberation. See, I don't think that we can talk about about black liberation without overturning the system, overturning the root cause for the oppression of black people. The only way we can do that, I feel, is through a socialist revolution. And that's going to involve not only black people, but all oppressed people in this society.
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Davis was an avid and committed member of the party, and in 1980 and 1984, she accepted the nomination of vice president for the Communist Party USA ticket. Obviously, this campaign did not gain much traction and the party received less than a tenth of 1% of the total vote. Davis left the party in 1991 and founded the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. The group's name was inspired by the Committees of Correspondence formed in the run up to the American Revolution. The Revolutionary Era Committee was a shadow government of sorts and is viewed as the bedrock of the eventual political alliance amongst the colonies against the crown. Thanks in part to her own experience with incarceration, Davis has been a loud and forceful critic of the prison system both in the United States and abroad. As a staunch supporter of the anti prison movement, Davis is working to end the prison system within the United States and the world via a group she co founded called Critical Resistance. The grassroots international organization is dedicated to the idea of shutting down prisons and according to their mission statement, our goal is not to improve the system even further, but to shrink the system into non existence. We work to build healthy, self determined communities and promote alternatives to the current system. End Quote Davis activism is concentrated in rooting out systemic racism and she is known for her commitment to challenging the public perception of liberation, revolution and communism and has consistently taken on controversial issues, often arguing against things like the Vietnam War, the death penalty and the invasion of the Middle east after the September 11 terrorist attacks. These days, Davis continues her work as an academic, serving as Distinguished Professor M ryda of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies. She continues to lecture and speak on social justice causes and has written several books including a memoir. I hope you enjoyed this bonus episode. Remember to learn more about the show, including source material, requesting an episode topic or just supporting the pod, check out my website at www.civicsandcoffee.com. you can also catch me on all those socials, Instagram, Civics and Coffee all one word on the Twitter ivicspod and the Facebook page Civics and Coffee. Thanks for tuning in and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Civics and Coffee. If you want to hear more small snippets from American history, be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining me and I look forward to our next cup of coffee together.
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Sam.