At the age of twenty-six, Angela Davis became one of the world’s most famous political prisoners and a revolutionary icon, her image as recognizable as that of Mao Zedong or Che Guevara. The circumstances that led to her imprisonment were complex and partly contrived.
In August 1970, several guns that were registered in Davis’s name had been brandished in an attempt to liberate three incarcerated black men at a courthouse in Marin County, California. After San Quentin prison guards opened fire, four people were killed, including a district judge. Davis had no prior knowledge of the events, but she was implicated on account of the guns.
More significantly, she was a known member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and a rising black activist: the state wanted her dead or locked up. It issued an arrest warrant on charges of conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder, which carried the death penalty, and Davis was placed on the FBI’s most wanted list.
Davis credits the international pressure campaign waged by the CPUSA and the National United Committee to Free Angela Davis (NUCFAD) with saving her life. Between 1970 and 1972, she spent seventeen months in prison before she was released on bail and finally acquitted of all charges. During this period, letters of solidarity from places like Cuba, France, East Germany, and the Soviet Union flooded the San Jose jail and courthouse where she was set to be tried. For her global audience, it was not Davis on trial but America’s own criminal justice system: Could it acquit a black woman communist who was so obviously innocent?
What makes Davis’s example remarkable is that she has never stopped repaying the debt she feels she owes the international left for securing her freedom — and her life. From…
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Auteur: Cecilia Sebastian
