Davis Research

Angela Yvonne Davis was born January 26, 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama.  Both of her parents were college graduates and were school teachers.  Davis also has a brother, Ben Davis, who played for the Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions in the 1960’s and 1970’s.  Davis then grew up to be known as an American political activist, author, and academic. Davis was briefly involved in the Black Panther Party during the Civil Rights Movement.  She also emerged as a prominent counterculture activist in the 1960’s working with the Communist party USA and she was a member until 1991.  Davis first got involved in studies of socialism and communism at the ‘Little Red School House’ in New York City.  She received a full scholarship to Brandais University.  While she was at the university she met German-American philosopher Herbert Marcuse and then became his student at UCSD.

Angela Davis then returned to East Germany for her Ph.D. in philosophy from Humboldt University in East Berlin.  Davis was then working at the University of California and got fired in 1969 but was later rehired.  In 1970, she appeared on the FBI’s most wanted list.  She avoided police for awhile but was the arrested and spent 18 months in the Women’s Detention Center in New York while she waited for her trial.  Davis was tried and freed of all charges against her.  Davis was shown as a victim of “capitalism” to poor Russian victims of socialism.  She refused to meet with the real Russian political prisoners.

Davis ran for Vice President of the United States as a candidate from the communist party USA in 1980.  She then ran again in 1984 along with the communist party leader Gus Hall.    She then opposed the 1995 Million Men March because she viewed it as promoting male chauvinism.  Currently she is the Presidential Chair and Professor with the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, on their Santa Cruz campus.  She also stands against the Death Penalty in California and remains a prominent abolitionist.

Angela Davis presents/compares to Hallward’s ideas for social change by standing up for what she believes in even though it may be a different opinion from what others think about the topic or subject.  She wasn’t afraid of being different or having a different opinion. So many people nowadays don’t speak their mind or tell people how they really feel because they are afraid to be different and to share that with other’s.  Many people feel ashamed when they aren’t like others or feel the same way others do about certain things.  Davis didn’t feel ashamed of what she believed in she stood up for what she believed in and fought for it even if it meant her getting arrested and treated differently.  Davis made a way for others to do what she did and not feel ashamed for it and this is what will create the social change that is needed.