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More on Angela Davis
From the Archives of The New York Times
Read a Review of "Blues Legacies and Black Feminism" (New York Times Book Review, Mar. 8, 1998) Read the First Chapter of "Blues Legacies and Black Feminism" Articles About and By Angela Davis Reviews
ARTICLES ABOUT AND BY ANGELA DAVIS:
Felix Beltran, Editora Politica, 1976
Politics Against Freedom (June 5, 1970)
This Times editorial puts the California Regents' dismissal of Angela Davis in context. Acting under the influence of Governor Ronald Reagan, the Regents had recently declared their power over permanent faculty appointments, a power formerly under control of campus administrators. The Times argues that the dismissal of Davis showed the dangers of politically motivated decisions affecting academic freedom.
California Regents Drop Communist From Faculty (June 20, 1970)
The California Regents voted to dismiss Angela Davis from her teaching post at UCLA. She had been fired initially for her membership in the Communist Party. A judge ruled that this was not grounds for dismissal and the Chancellor moved to reinstate her. The Regents again voted to remove her, this time for "inflammatory" speeches she had made that were critical of University policy.
Angela Davis is Sought in Shooting That Killed Judge on Coast (August 16, 1970)
Angela Davis was sought in connection with the shooting deaths of four people, including a judge, in a Marin County courthouse. Guns registered in her name were used by assailants who took hostages in an attempt to free prisoners who were being tried in the courthouse.
F.B.I. Seizes Angela Davis in Motel Here (October 14, 1970)
Davis, who had evaded the law since the murders in Marin, was arrested in Manhattan by federal agents and prepared for extradition to California.
The Campaign to Free Angela Davis and Ruchell Magee (June 27, 1971)
This New York Times Magazine article recounts the story of the shootout at the Marin County courthouse and the legal and political battle that followed. Davis became the cause célèbre of American radicals, with the help of the National United Committee to Free Angela Davis, a vigorous campaign financed and directed by the Communist party.
Lessons: From Attica to Soledad (October 8, 1971)
Writing from the Marin County jail, Davis argues that prisons imitate the methods of totalitarianism in their "dehumanizing, desocializing mechanisms." Citing the Attica prison riots, she says that prisoners have begun to reassert their humanity by their support for radical activist leaders within the prison walls.
Witnesses Dispute Testimony Linking Angela Davis to Shootings (May 23, 1972)
Davis's defense lawyers presented witnesses that accounted for her whereabouts throughout the week preceding the murders.
Angela Davis Acquitted on All Charges (June 5, 1972)
Davis, though clearly relieved after the verdict was read, remained defiant, telling a reporter, "A fair trial would have been no trial at all."
Scholarly Activist (June 5, 1972)
This profile of Davis examines the relationship between the scholarly background of her ideals and the street-level radicalism she came to practice.
Angela Davis Job Debated on Coast (November 16, 1975)
Controversy surrounded Davis's teaching appointment at Claremont, a cluster of six colleges in southern California. Unable to dismiss her after signing a binding contract, the colleges imposed strict conditions on her employment after protests from alumni and benefactors.
Gus Hall and Angela Davis Lead Communist Party's Ticket for '80 (November 20, 1979)
Angela Davis, after turning the constitutionality mandated age of 35, became the running mate of longtime Communist Party leader Gus Hall in his bid for the Presidency.
Other Women Seeking No. 2 Spot Speak Out (July 29, 1984)
Two-time Vice Presidential candidate Angela Davis bristled when she heard Geraldine Ferraro referred to as the "first woman Vice-Presidential candidate." In 1984, Davis was again in the second spot on the Communist party ticket, although a judge would later rule that they could not appear on the ballot. Unlike another woman Vice Presidential candidate, Andrea Gonzalez, who was running on the Socialist Workers Party ticket, Davis expressed hope that Ferraro would succeed in winning the office, despite their ideological differences."Who is Angela Davis? The Biography of a Revolutionary" by Regina Nadelson, reviewed by Toni Morrison (1972)
"Who is Regina Nadelson and why is she behaving like Harriet Beecher Stowe, another simpatico white girl who felt she was privy to the secret of how black revolutionaries got that way? How Liza could get to the point of actually crossing the ice or how Angela Davis got to the point of actually joining the Communist party was quite naturally that white intelligence informed them both; and since Harriet was prey to the scientific racism of her day she attributed Liza's feistiness to the genetic transference of information via white blood; but Regina lives in the 20th century and is an enlightened racist who knows about cultural determinism, which is to say Angela got her courage not from white blood but white culture."
"Angela Davis: An Autobiography" (1974)
"[The autobiography is] a strong, idiosyncratic account of her childhood, youth and growth, and her choice of the Communist party as the agency through which to act. To the personal narrative she brings such precision and individuality that she reminds us out of what universal, bitter, private experiences the black movement coalesced in the first place. Her account of her involvement with the party is so plausible and fresh it turns back the burden of explanation to those who feel the C. P. is so irrelevant, drenched with the blood of history, or populated by Government agents, that anyone who would willingly join it is stupid, unserious, an agent him/her self, or fond of losing."
"Women, Race and Class" (1982)
"The notion that poor black women are triply oppressed -- by class, race and sex -- is by now a truism; but the ragged course of those biases in the past and the points at which they converge today are not easily sorted out or even spotted... [Davis's] approach, through most of this ambitious volume, is historical... I wish that she had spoken to us here, as she has so movingly in the past, in a voice less tuned at times to the Communist Party, more insistently her own. But she is herself a woman of undeniable courage. She should be heard."
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