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Home · News

Why Angela Davis Is An Icon

The revolutionary turns 79 today.
Why Angela Davis Is An Icon
By Malaika Jabali · Updated January 26, 2023

Angela Davis, the Birmingham-born revolutionary who helped inspire today’s abolition movement, is celebrating her birthday today, Jan. 26!

Besides being renowned for her critique of the prison system, Angela Davis was a known associate of the Black Panther Party (though despite the misconception, she was never a Black Panther), a prominent Communist and outspoken anti-capitalist, and one of the most prominent voices of the Black Power movement.

Here are some of the legendary freedom fighter’s iconic moments.

01
When she ate up this reporter who asked her if she agreed with violent tactics for liberation

“Do you get [to revolution] by confrontation? Violence?” a reporter asked Davis in a 1972 interview. “Oh is that that question you were asking?” she begins rhetorically as a smile forms across her face, knowing full well that was the minute the reporter would regret ever asking the question.  

“I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. Some very, very good friends of mine were killed by bombs, bombs that were planted by racists,” she said of the Birmingham church bombing that killed four young girls, one of whom was her neighbor. “When someone asks me about violence I just find it incredible…what it means is that the person asking that question has absolutely no idea what Black people have gone through.” 

Why Angela Davis Is An Icon
02
Her release of “Are Prisons Obsolete”

Davis was well ahead of her time, as her 2003 book raised questions about a penitentiary system we assume is necessary to society and has become required reading for the modern abolition movement.

Why Angela Davis Is An Icon
OAKLAND, CA – JUNE 19: Civil rights icon Angela Davis pumps her fist in solidarity during a Juneteenth protest against police brutality as longshoremen shut down the Port of Oakland and 28 other ports along the west coast on Friday, June 19, 2020, in Oakland, Calif. (Yalonda M. James/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
03
Inspired an international campaign to free her from prison

In the early 1970s, the “Free Angela” movement took hold in Latin America, Europe, and the U.S after she was linked to a failed plot to free a political prisoner.

 

Why Angela Davis Is An Icon
Portrait de la militante américaine Angela Davis. (Photo by Michelle VIGNES/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
04
Davis was a whole professor at UCLA when she was accused of stirring up revolution. 

Davis began to be associated with the Black Panther Party while she was an associate professor at the esteemed California school.

Activity that made her a target of then-California Governor Ronald Reagan–who forced her firing from the university– made her a legend-in-the-making. 

Why Angela Davis Is An Icon
American activist Angela Davis, shortly after she was fired from her post as philosophy professor at UCLA due to her membership of the Communist Party of America, 4th November 1969. (Photo by Lucas Mendes/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
05
Published her seminal book “Women, Race and Class”

In her book published in the early 1980s, Davis shed light on the specific experiences Black women faced in a country built on servitude, while white women were centered in the feminist movement. 

Why Angela Davis Is An Icon
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 21: Angela Davis attends the Women’s March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Noam Galai/WireImage)

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