Angela DavisFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Angela Davis

Davis in October 2006

BornAngela Yvonne DavisJanuary 26, 1944 (age 67)Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.

Ethnicity African-AmericanCitizenship United StatesEducation University of Santa Cruz

Alma mater

Brandeis University, B.A., (1965)University of California, San Diego, M.A.Humboldt University, Ph.D., Philosophy

Occupation Activist, educator, author

Employer University of California, Santa Cruz (retired)

Influenced by

Herbert Marcuse

Political party

Communist Party USA (1969-1991), Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (1991-currenty)

Spouse Hilton Braithwaite div.[1]

Relatives Ben Davis, brother

Angela Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis emerged as a nationally prominent activist in the 1960s, when she was associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party. Prisoner rights have been among her continuing

interests; she is the founder of "Critical Resistance", an organization working to abolish the prison-industrial complex. She is a retired professor with the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz and is the former director of the university's Feminist Studies department.[2] Her research interests are in feminism, African American studies, critical theory, Marxism, popular music and social consciousness, and the philosophy and history of punishment and prisons.[3]

Her membership in the Communist Party led to Ronald Reagan's request in 1969 to have her barred from teaching at any university in the State of California. She was tried and acquitted of suspected involvement in the Soledad brothers' August 1970 abduction and murder of Judge Harold Haley in Marin County, California.

She was twice a candidate for Vice President on the Communist Party USA ticket during the 1980s.

Contents

[hide]

• 1 Early life • 2 Education

o 2.1 Brandeis University o 2.2 University of Frankfurt o 2.3 Postgraduate work

• 3 UCLA • 4 Arrest and trial • 5 In Cuba • 6 Aleksander Solzhenitsyn • 7 Activism • 8 Bibliography

o 8.1 Angela Davis interviews and appearances in audiovisual materials o 8.2 Archives

• 9 See also • 10 References

• 11 External links

[edit] Early life

Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama. Her father, Frank Davis, was a graduate of St. Augustine's College, a traditionally black college in Raleigh, North Carolina, and was briefly a high school history teacher. Her father later owned and operated a service station in the black section of Birmingham. Her mother, Sallye Davis, a graduate of Miles College in Birmingham, was an elementary school teacher.

The family lived in the "Dynamite Hill" neighborhood, which was marked by racial conflict. Davis was occasionally able to spend time on her uncle's farm and with friends in New York City.[4] Her brother, Ben Davis, played defensive back for the Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Davis also has another brother, Reginald Davis, and sister, Fania Davis Jordan.[5]

Davis attended Carrie A. Tuggle School, a black elementary school; later she attended Parker Annex, a middle-school branch of Parker High School in Birmingham. During this time Davis’ mother was a national officer and leading organizer of the Southern Negro Congress, an organization heavily influenced by the Communist Party. Consequently Davis grew up surrounded by communist organizers and thinkers who significantly influenced her intellectual development growing up.[6] By her junior year, she had applied to and

was accepted at an American Friends Service Committee program that placed black students from the South in integrated schools in the North. She chose Elisabeth Irwin High School in Greenwich Village in New York City. There she was introduced to socialism and communism and was recruited by a Communist youth group, Advance. She also met children of some of the leaders of the Communist Party USA, including her lifelong friend, Bettina Aptheker.[7]

[edit] Education

[edit] Brandeis University

Davis was awarded a scholarship to Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, where she was one of three black students in her freshman class. She initially felt alienated by the isolation of the campus (at that time she was interested in Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre), but she soon made friends with foreign students. She encountered the Frankfurt School philosopher Herbert Marcuse at a rally during the Cuban Missile Crisis and then became his student. In a television interview, she said "Herbert Marcuse taught me that it was possible to be an academic, an activist, a scholar, and a revolutionary."[8] She worked part time to earn enough money to travel to France and Switzerland before she went on to attend the eighth World Festival of Youth and Students in Helsinki, Finland. She returned home in 1963 to a Federal Bureau of Investigation interview about her attendance at the Communist-sponsored festival.[9]

During her second year at Brandeis, she decided to major in French and continued her intensive study of Sartre. Davis was accepted by the Hamilton College Junior Year in France Program and, she wrote in her autobiography, she managed to talk Brandeis into extending financial support via her scholarship. Classes were initially at Biarritz and later at the Sorbonne. In Paris, she and other students lived with a French family. It was at Biarritz that she received news of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, committed by the members of the Ku Klux Klan, an occasion that deeply affected her, because, she wrote, she was personally acquainted with the young victims.[9]

Nearing completion of her degree in French, Davis realized her major interest was in philosophy. She became particularly interested in the ideas of Herbert Marcuse and on her return to Brandeis she sat in on his course without asking for credit. Marcuse, she wrote, turned out to be approachable and helpful. Davis began making plans to attend the University of Frankfurt for graduate work in philosophy. In 1965 she graduated magna cum laude, a member of Phi Beta Kappa.[9]

[edit] University of Frankfurt

In Germany, with a stipend of just $100 a month, she first lived with a German family. Later, she moved with a group of students into a loft in an old factory. After visiting East Berlin during the annual May Day celebration, she felt that the East German government was dealing better with the residual effects of fascism than were the West Germans. Many of her roommates were active in the radical Socialist German Student Union (SDS), and Davis participated in SDS actions, but events unfolding in the United States — the formation of the Black Panther Party and transformation of SNCC, for example — impelled her to return to the US.[9]

[edit] Postgraduate work

This section requires expansion.

Marcuse, in the meantime, had moved to the University of California, San Diego, and Davis followed him there after her two years in Frankfurt.[9]

Returning to the United States, Davis stopped in London to attend a conference on "The Dialectics of Liberation." The black contingent at the conference included the American Stokely Carmichael and the British Michael X. Although moved by Carmichael's fiery rhetoric, she was disappointed by her colleagues' black nationalist sentiments and their rejection of communism as a "white man's thing." She held the view that any nationalism was a barrier to grappling with the underlying issue, capitalist domination of working people of all races.[10]

Davis earned her master's degree from the San Diego campus and her doctorate in philosophy from Humboldt University in East Berlin.[11]

Davis is currently a Distinguished Professor in the Women's and Gender Studies Department at Syracuse University.[12] She also worked as a visiting professor with the Syracuse University Department of African American studies.

[edit] UCLA

Davis was an acting assistant professor in the philosophy department at the UCLA, beginning in 1969. At that time, she also was known as a radical feminist and activist, a member of the Communist Party USA and an associate of the Black Panther Party.[2]

The Board of Regents of the University of California, urged by then-California Governor Ronald Reagan, fired her from her $10,000 a year post in 1969 because of her membership in the Communist Party. Black students and several professors, however, claimed that they fired her because of her race. The Board of Regents was censured by the American Association of University Professors for their failure to reappoint Davis after her teaching contract expired.[13] On October 20 when California judge, Perry Pacht, ruled that the Regents could not fire Davis because of her affiliation with the Communist Party, Davis resumed her post at the University. The Regents, unhappy with the decision, continued to search for ways to release Davis from her position at UCLA. They finally accomplished this on June 20, 1970 when they fired Davis on account of the “inflammatory language” she had used on four different speeches. “We deem particularly offensive,” the report said, “such utterances as her statement that the regents ‘killed, brutalized (and) murdered’ the People’s Park demonstrators, and her repeated characterizations of the police as ‘pigs.’” [14][15][16]

[edit] Arrest and trial

See also: Marin County courthouse incident

On August 7, 1970 Jonathan Jackson, a heavily armed, 17-year-old African American high school student gained control over a courtroom in Marin County, California. Once in the courtroom, Jackson armed the black defendants and took Judge Harold Haley, the prosecutor, and three female jurors as hostages.[17][18] As Jackson transported the hostages and two black convicts away from the courtroom, the police began shooting at the vehicle. The judge, one of the jurors, the prosecutor, and the three black men were killed in the melee. Davis had purchased the firearms used in the attack, including the shotgun used to kill Haley, which had been purchased two days prior and sawed-off.[18] She had also written numerous letters found in the prison cell of one of the murderers. Since California considers “all persons concerned in the commission of a crime, whether they directly commit the act constituting the offense… principals in any crime so committed,” San Marin County Superior Judge Peter Allen Smith charged Davis with “aggravated kidnapping and first degree murder in the death of Judge Harold Haley” and issued a warrant for her arrest (21). Hours after the judge issued the warrant on August 14, 1970 a massive attempt to arrest Angela Davis began. On August 18, 1970, four days after the initial warrant was issued, FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover made Angela Davis the third woman and the 309th person to appear on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List.[17][19]

Soon after, Davis became a fugitive and fled California. According to her autobiography, during this time she hid in friends’ homes and moved from place to place at night. On October 13, 1970 FBI agents found her at the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge in New York City.[20] President Richard M. Nixon congratulated the FBI on its “capture of the dangerous terrorist, Angela Davis." On January 5, 1971, after several months in jail, Angela Davis appeared at the Marin County Superior Court and declared her innocence before the court and nation: "I now declare publicly before the court, before the people of this country that I am innocent of all charges which have been leveled against me by the state of California." John Abt, general counsel of the Communist Party USA, was one of the first attorneys to represent Davis for her alleged involvement in the shootings.[21] While being held in the Women's Detention Center there, she was initially segregated from the general population, but with the help of her legal team soon obtained a federal court order to get out of the segregated area.[22]

Angela Davis and Erich Honecker in GDR, 1972

Across the nation, the thousands of people who agreed with her declaration began organizing a liberation movement. In New York City, black writers formed a committee called the Black People in Defense of Angela Davis. By February 1971 more than 200 local committees in the United States, and 67 in foreign countries worked to liberate Angela Davis from prison. Thanks, in part, to this support, in 1972 the state released her from prison.[17] After spending 18 months behind bars, Davis was acquitted of all charges by an all-white jury.

On February 23, 1972, Rodger McAfee, a dairy farmer from Caruthers, California with the help of Steve Sparacino, a wealthy business owner, paid her $100,000 bail. Portions of her legal defense expenses were paid for by the Presbyterian Church (UPCNA).[17][23]

During the trial, Davis was sketched by courtroom artists Rosalie Ritz and Walt Stewart.[24]

In 1972, she was tried and the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. The fact that she owned the guns used in the crime was judged not sufficient to establish her responsibility for the plot. Her experience as a prisoner in the US played a key role in convincing her to fight against the “prison industrial complex” that exists in the US.[17] John Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded their song "Angela" on their 1972 album Some Time in New York City in support. The Jazz musician Todd Cochran, also known as Bayete, recorded his song "Free Angela (Thoughts...and all I've got to say)" that same year. The Rolling Stones recorded the song "Sweet Black Angel" on their 1972 album Exile on Main Street.[25]

[edit] In Cuba

After her release, Davis visited Cuba following her fellow radicals Huey Newton, Stokely Carmichael, and Assata Shakur. Her reception by Afro-Cubans at a mass rally was so enthusiastic that she was reportedly barely able to speak.[26]

During this visit she also became convinced that “only under socialism could the fight against racism be successfully executed.” During her stay in Cuba, Davis witnessed what she thought was a racism free country which led her to believe that blacks could only achieve racial equality in a socialist society. When she returned to the United States, her socialist leanings increasingly influenced the ways she looked at race struggles within the US.[27]

[edit] Aleksander Solzhenitsyn

In a New York City speech on July 9, 1975, Russian dissident and Nobel Laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn told an AFL-CIO meeting that Davis was derelict in supporting prisoners in various socialist countries around the world, given her stark opposition to the U.S. prison system. In particular, Solzhenitsyn claimed that a group of Czech prisoners appealed to Davis for support, which he said she refused to offer.[28] In a speech at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, Davis denied Solzhenitsyn's claim.[29]

[edit] Activism

In 1980 and 1984, Angela Davis ran for Vice-President along with the veteran party leader of the Communist Party, Gus Hall. However, given that the Communist Party lacked support within the US, Davis urged radicals to amass support for the Democratic Party. Revolutionaries must be realists, said Davis in a telephone interview from San Francisco where she was campaigning. During both of the campaigns she was Professor of Ethnic Studies at the San Francisco State University.[30] In 1979 she was also awarded with the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union for her civil rights activism. She visited Moscow in July of that year to collect the prize.

Angela Davis as honorary guest of the World Festival of Youth and Students in 1973

Davis has continued a career of activism, and has written several books. A principal focus of her current activism is the state of prisons within the United States. She considers herself an abolitionist, not a "prison reformer," and has referred to the United States prison system as the "prison-industrial complex".[31] Davis suggested focusing social efforts on education and building "engaged communities" to solve various social problems now handled through state punishment.[2] Davis was one of the primary founders of Critical Resistance, a national grassroots organization dedicated to building a movement to abolish the prison system.

In recent work, Angela Davis argues that the prison system in the United States more closely resembles a new form of slavery than a criminal justice system. According to Davis, between the late 19th century and the mid-20th century the number of prisons in the US sharply increased while crime rates continued to rise. During this time, the African American population also became disproportionally represented in prisons. "What is effective or just about this "justice" system?" she urged people to question.[32] To encourage people to critically think about the criminal justice system and its racist history, Davis has also spent years lecturing in schools, parks, and other public places to the American public.

She has lectured at San Francisco State University, Stanford University, Bryn Mawr College, Brown University, Syracuse University, and other schools.[2] She states that in her teaching, which is mostly at the graduate level, she concentrates more on posing questions that encourage development of critical thinking than on imparting knowledge.[2] In 1997, she declared herself to be a lesbian in Out magazine.[33]

As early as 1969 Davis began publicly speaking, voicing her opposition to the Vietnam War, racism, sexism, and the prison industrial complex, and her support of gay rights and other social justice movements. In 1969 she blamed imperialism for the troubles suffered by oppressed populations. “We are facing a common enemy and that enemy is Yankee Imperialism, which is killing us both here and abroad. Now I think anyone who would try to separate those struggles, anyone who would say that in order to consolidate an anti-war movement, we have to leave all of these other outlying issues out of the picture, is playing right into the hands of the enemy,” Davis declared.[34] In 2001 she publicly spoke against the war on terror, the prison industrial complex, and the broken immigration system and told people that if they wanted to solve social

justice issues they had to “hone their critical skills, develop them and implement them." Later, after the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, she declared, the “horrendous situation in New Orleans,” is due to the structures of racism, capitalism, and imperialism with which our leaders run this country.[35]

Davis spoke out against the 1995 Million Man March, arguing that the exclusion of women from this event necessarily promoted male chauvinism and that the organizers, including Louis Farrakhan, preferred women to take subordinate roles in society. Together with Kimberlé Crenshaw and others, she formed the African American Agenda 2000, an alliance of Black feminists.[36]

Davis is no longer a member of the Communist Party, leaving it to help found the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, which broke from the Communist Party USA because of the latter's support of the Soviet coup attempt of 1991 and the Communist parties of the Warsaw Pact.[37] She remains on the Advisory Board of the Committees.[38]

Davis at the University of Alberta, March 28, 2006.

Davis has continued to speak out against the death penalty. In 2003, Davis lectured at Agnes Scott College, a liberal arts women's college in Atlanta, on prison reform, minority issues, and the ills of the criminal justice system.[39]

At the University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz), she participated in a 2004 panel concerning Kevin Cooper. She also spoke in defense of Stanley "Tookie" Williams on another panel in 2005,[40] and 2009.[41]

As of February 2007, Davis was teaching in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz.[42]

In addition to being the commencement speaker at Grinnell College in 2007, in October of that year, Davis was the keynote speaker at the fifth annual Practical Activism Conference at UC Santa Cruz.[43]

On February 8, 2008, Davis spoke on the campus of Howard University at the invitation of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity. On February 24, 2008, she was featured as the closing keynote speaker for the 2008 Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally College Conference. On April 14, 2008, she spoke at the College of Charleston as a guest of the Women's and Gender Studies Program. On January 23, 2009, she was the keynote speaker at the Martin Luther King Commemorative Celebration on the campus of Louisiana State University.[44]

On April 16, 2009, she was the keynote speaker at the University of Virginia Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies symposium on The Problem of Punishment: Race, Inequity, and Justice.[45] On January 20, 2010, Davis was the keynote speaker in San Antonio, Texas, at Trinity University's MLK Day Celebration held in Laurie Auditorium. On January 21, 2011, Davis was the keynote speaker in Salem, OR at Willamette University's MLK Week Celebration held in Smith Auditorium where she declared that her biggest goal for the coming years is to shut down prisons. During her remarks, she also noted that while she supports some of President Barack Obama's positions, she feels he is too conservative. On January 27, 2011, Davis was the Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration speaker at Georgia Southern University's Performing Arts Center (PAC) in Statesboro, Georgia. On June 10, 2011, Davis delivered the Graduation Address at the Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington.[46]

As of 31 October 2011, Davis had spoken at the Philadelphia and Washington Square Occupy Wall Street assemblies where, due to restrictions on electronic amplification, her words were human microphoned.[47][48]

[edit] Bibliography

• Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire, Seven Stories Press (October 1, 2005), ISBN 1583226958.• Are Prisons Obsolete?, Open Media, (April 2003), ISBN 1583225811• Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday, Vintage Books, (January 26, 1999), ISBN 0679771263• Women, Culture & Politics, Vintage, (February 19, 1990), ISBN 0679724877.• The Angela Y. Davis Reader, (Joy James, Ed.), Wiley-Blackwell (December 11, 1998), ISBN 0631203613.• Women, Race, & Class, (February 12, 1983)• Angela Davis: An Autobiography, Random House, (September 1974), ISBN 0394489780• If They Come in the Morning: voices of Resistance (New York: Third Press, 1971)• 1970's-Joan Little: The Dialectics of Rape(New York: Lang Communications, 1975)• The Meaning of Freedom (City Lights, 2012)

[edit] Angela Davis interviews and appearances in audiovisual materials

• 1971o Davis, Angela Y. An Interview with Angela Davis. Cassette. Radio Free People, New York, 1971.o Myerson, M. "Angela Davis in Prison." Ramparts Magazine March 1971: 20-21.o Seigner, Art. Angela Davis: Soul and Soledad. Phonodisc. Flying Dutchman, New York, 1971.o Interview with Angela Davis in San Francisco on June, 1970

o Walker, Joe. Angela Davis Speaks. Phonodisc. Folkways Records, New York, 1971.• 1972

o "Angela Davis Talks about her Future and her Freedom." Jet July 27, 1972: 54- 57.• 1977

o Davis, Angela Y. I am a Black Revolutionary Woman (1971). Phonodisc. Folkways, New York, 1977.o Phillips, Esther. Angela Davis Interviews Esther Phillips. Cassette. Pacifica Tape Library, Los Angeles, 1977.

• 1985o Cudjoe, Selwyn. In Conversation with Angela Davis. Videocassette. ETV Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, 1985. 21 minute interview with Angela Davis.

• 1992o Davis, Angela Y. "Women on the Move: Travel Themes in Ma Rainey's Blues" in Borders/diasporas. Sound Recording. University of California, Santa Cruz: Center for Cultural Studies, Santa Cruz, 1992.

• 2000o Davis, Angela Y. The Prison Industrial Complex and its Impact on Communities of Color. Videocassette. University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI, 2000.

• 2001o Barsamian, D. "Angela Davis: African American Activist on Prison-Industrial Complex." Progressive 65.2 (2001): 33-38.

• 2002o September 11 America: an Interview with Angela Davis." Policing the National Body: Sex, Race, and Criminalization”. Cambridge, Ma.: South End Press, 2002.

[edit] Archives

1. The National United Committee to Free Angela Davis is at the Main Library at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California (A collection of thousands of letters received by the Committee and Davis from people in the US and other countries.)

2. The complete transcript of her trial, including all appeals and legal memorandum, have been preserved in the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Library in Berkeley, California.

[edit] See also‹ The template (Portal box) is being considered for merging. ›

Biography portal

African American portal

Communism portal

• List of African American philosophers

[edit] References

1. ̂ "Angela Davis, Sweetheart of the Far Left, Finds Her Mr. Right". People. July 21, 1980. http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20077018,00.html. Retrieved October 20, 2011.2. ^ a b c d e "Interview with Angela Davis". BookTV. 2004-10-03.3. ̂ Histcon.ucsc.edu[dead link]

4. ̂ Davis, Angela Yvonne (March 1989). "Rocks". Angela Davis: An Autobiography. New York City: International Publishers. ISBN 0717-80667-7.

5. ̂ Aptheker, Bettina (1999). The Morning Breaks: The Trial of Angela Davis (2nd ed.). Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. http://books.google.com/books?id=yA9vwr6g8cMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false.6. ̂ Kum-Kum Bhavnani, Bhavnani; Davis,Angela (Spring 1989). "Complexity, Activism, Optimism: An Interview with Angela Y. Davis". Feminist Review (31): 66–81. JSTOR 1395091.7. ̂ Horowitz, David (Friday, November 10, 2006). "The Political Is Personal". Front Page Magazine. http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=1608. Retrieved February 11, 2011.8. ̂ "Sandiegoreader.com". Sandiegoreader.com. 2007-08-23. http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2007/aug/23/bourgeois-marxist/. Retrieved 2010-10-21.9. ^ a b c d e Davis, Angela Yvonne (March 1989). "Waters". Angela Davis: An Autobiography. New York City: International Publishers. ISBN 0717-80667-7.10. ̂ Davis, Angela Yvonne (March 1989). "Flames". Angela Davis: An Autobiography. New York City: International Publishers. ISBN 0717-80667-7.11. ̂ ""Women Outlaws: Politics of Gender and Resistance in the US Criminal Justice System", SUNY Cortland , Mechthild Nagel" . Web.cortland.edu. 2005-05-02. http://web.cortland.edu/nagelm/papers_for_web/davis_assata06.htm. Retrieved 2010-10-21.12. ̂ "WGS.syr.edu". WGS.syr.edu. http://wgs.syr.edu/FacultyStaff.htm. Retrieved 2010-10-21.13. ̂ Google Books. Books.google.com. 1972-05-25. http://books.google.com/books?id=rrEDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2010-10-21.14. ̂ Davies, Lwrence (April 28, 2011). "U.C.L.A Teacher is Ousted as Red". The New York Times.15. ̂ Turner, Wallace (April 28, 2011). "California Regents Drop Communist From Faculty". The New York Times.16. ̂ "UCLA Barred from Pressing Red's Ouster". The New York Times. April 28, 2011.17. ^ a b c d e Aptheker, Bettina (1997). The Morning Breaks: The Trial of Angela Davis. Cornell University Press.18. ^ a b Associated Press (August 17, 1970). "Search broadens for Angela Davis". Eugene Register-Guard. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=4BkRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NuEDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6482%2C3554926. Retrieved September 14, 2009.19. ̂ __BookTextView/135;pt=125 "Biography". Davis (Angela) Legal Defense Collection, 1970-1972. http://digilib.nypl.org/dynaweb/ead/scm/scmdavisa/@Generic __BookTextView/135;pt=125. Retrieved 2007-06-21.[dead link]

20. ̂ Charleton, Linda (April 28, 2011). "F.B.I Seizes Angela Davisin Motel Here". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/08/home/davis-fbi.html?-r=1. Retrieved April 26, 2011.21. ̂ Abt, John; Myerson, Michael (1993). Advocate and Activist: Memoirs of an American Communist Lawyer. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252020308, 9780252020308. http://books.google.com/books?id=9REaIPPh4k4C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false.22. ̂ Davis, Angela Yvonne (March 1989). "Nets". Angela Davis: An Autobiography. New York City: International Publishers. ISBN 0717-80667-7.23. ̂ Sol Stern (June 27, 1971). "The Campaign to Free Angela Davis and Ruchell Magee". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/08/home/davis-campaign.html.24. ̂ Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations (February 8, 2005). ""Two Artists of the Courtroom" on exhibit" (Press release). University of California, Berkeley. http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/02/08_courtroomartist.shtml.25. ̂ Caldwell, Earl. "Angela Davis Acquitted on All Charges" The New York Times. June 5, 1972. Retrieved on 2008-07-02.26. ̂ Gott, Richard (2004). Cuba: A New History. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. p. 230. ISBN 0-300-10411-1.27. ̂ Sawyer, Mark (2006). Racial politics in Post-Revolutionary Cuba. Los Angeles: University of California. pp. 95–97.28. ̂ Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr (October 1976). Warning to the West. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 60–61. ISBN 0374513341. http://www.angeladavis.org.29. ̂ Angela Davis, Q&A after a speech, "Engaging Diversity on Campus: The Curriculum and the Faculty," East Stroudsburg University, Pennsylvania, 15 October 2006.

30. ̂ Brooke, James (July 29, 1984). "Other Women Seeking Number 2 Spot Speak Out". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/08/home/davis-vp.html?_r=2. Retrieved April 26, 2011.31. ̂ Davis, Angela (10 September 1998). "Masked racism: reflections on the prison industrial complex". Color Lines. http://www.colorlines.com/archives/1998/09/masked_racism_reflections_on_the_prison_industrial_complex.html.32. ̂ Davis, Angela (2003). Are prisons Obsolete?. Canada: Open Media Series.33. ̂ "Angela Davis". Notable name database. http://www.nndb.com/people/185/000024113/. Retrieved 2007-07-21.34. ̂ Davis, Angela. "Speech by Angela Davis at a Black Panther Rally in Bobby Hutton Park". Speech. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/04/15/18589458.php. Retrieved April 26, 2011.35. ̂ "YouTube - Angela Davis (public speech) - LIVE". Speech. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JKENb33U4E.36. ̂ E. Frances White (2001). Dark continent of our bodies: black feminism and the politics of respectability. Temple University Press. ISBN 9781566398800. http://books.google.com/books?id=MLz7jo09yiAC&pg=PA78&dq=angela+davis+African+American+Agenda+2000,#v=onepage&q=angela%20davis%20African%20American%20Agenda%202000%2C&f=false.37. ̂ "(title unknown)". Corresponder (Committees of Correspondence). 1992.38. ̂ "Advisory board". Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism website. Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. 2007-07-20. http://www.cc-ds.org/advisory_bd.html. Retrieved 2007-07-20.39. ̂ "ASC Spotlight - Africana Studies". Agnesscott.edu. http://www.agnesscott.edu/spotlightDetails.aspx?Channel=%2FChannels%2FAdmissions%2FAdmissions+Content&WorkflowItemID=91360c59-8fdf-4a2c-871e-2a520121de7d. Retrieved October 20, 2011.40. ̂ ""Angela Davis: "The State of California May Have Extinguished the Life of Stanley Tookie Williams, But They Have Not Managed to Extinguish the Hope for a Better World"", Democracy Now , December 13, 2005". Democracynow.org. 2005-12-13. http://www.democracynow.org/2005/12/13/angela_davis_the_state_of_california. Retrieved 2010-10-21.41. ̂ Bybee, Crystal (2009-11-11). "Indybay.org". Indybay.org. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/11/11/18628372.php. Retrieved 2010-10-21.42. ̂ "NOW on the News with Maria Hinojosa: Angela Davis on Race in America". NOW. Public Broadcasting System. February 23, 2007. http://www.pbs.org/now/news/308.html. Retrieved February 12, 2011.43. ̂ Santa Cruz Indymedia coverage of the 5th annual Practical Activism Conference at UC Santa Cruz.44. ̂ Foley, Melissa. "LSU to Hold Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Events." LSU Highlights. Jan. 2009. Web. 3 Nov. 2009. [1]45. ̂ Bromley, Anne. "Angela Davis to Headline the Woodson Institute’s Spring Symposium." The Woodson Institute Newsletter. 2 Apr. 2009. Web. 3 Nov. 2009. [2]46. ̂ "2011 Graduation Guest Speaker at Evergreen". Evergreen.edu. May 24, 2011. http://www.evergreen.edu/graduation/guest-speaker.htm. Retrieved October 20, 2011.47. ̂ Nation of Change Washington Square assembly.48. ̂ YouTube of Occupy Philly address

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Angela Davis

• Film clip, Davis speaking at Florida A&M University’s Black History Month convocation, 1979 • Davis quotations gathered by Black History Daily • A PBS interview • Davis on "Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex." 1998 • Round table discussion on "Resisting the Prison Industrial Complex, with Davis as a guest

• New York Times archive of Davis-related articles • "The Facts Behind the Angela Davis Case" by Lawrence V. Cotj • Time chat-room users interview with Davis on "Attacking the 'Prison Industrial Complex." 1998 • Harvard Gazette article, March 13, 2003 • Davis timeline at UCLA • Audio recording of Davis at a Practical Activism Conference in Santa Cruz in 2007 • Guardian interview with Davis, November 8, 2007 • Davis entry in the Encyclopedia of Alabama • Angela Davis at the Internet Movie Database• Angela Davis at AllRovi• Angela Davis on the 40th Anniversary of Her Arrest and President Obama’s First Two Years - video interview by Democracy Now!• Angela Davis Biography, The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs, and Germany

Party political offices

Preceded byJarvis Tyner

Communist Party USA Vice Presidential candidate

1980 (lost), 1984 (lost)

Succeeded by—

Angela DavisUn article de Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre.

Aller à : Navigation, rechercherAngela Davis

Angela Davis à l'université d'Alberta en 2006

Naissance26 janvier 1944Birmingham

Nationalité américaineProfession professeur d'université

Angela Yvonne Davis, née le 26 janvier 1944 à Birmingham dans l'État de l'Alabama, est une militante américaine communiste 1 des droits de l'homme et un professeur de philosophie.

Militante des droits civiques, proche du Black Panther Party, elle fut poursuivie par la justice à la suite de la tentative d’évasion de trois prisonniers, surnommés les Frères de Soledad, qui se solda par la mort d’un juge californien en août 1970. Emprisonnée seize mois à New York puis en Californie, elle fut finalement acquittée et poursuivit une carrière universitaire qui la mena au poste de directrice du département d’études

féministes de l’université de Californie. Ses centres d’intérêt sont la philosophie féministe, et notamment le Black Feminism, les études afro-américaines, la théorie critique, le marxisme ou encore le système carcéral. En 1997, elle fait son coming out auprès du magazine Out.

Elle fut à deux reprises, en 1980 et 1984, candidate à la vice-présidence des États-Unis pour le parti communiste américain.

Sommaire

[masquer]

• 1 Biographie o 1.1 Enfance o 1.2 Les années new-yorkaises o 1.3 Études supérieures o 1.4 Positionnement politique o 1.5 Le procès

• 2 Hommages • 3 Ouvrages • 4 Bibliographie • 5 Filmographie • 6 Notes et références • 7 Voir aussi

o 7.1 Articles connexes

o 7.2 Liens externes

Biographie[modifier]

Enfance[modifier]

Angela Davis est née dans une famille afro-américaine habitant l'Alabama des années 1944, alors que les lois Jim Crow imposaient toujours la ségrégation raciale dans le Sud des États-Unis. Son père était diplômé de St Augustine’s College, une institution réservée aux Noirs Américains située à Raleigh en Caroline du Nord. Il fut brièvement professeur d’histoire dans l’enseignement secondaire mais, estimant son salaire insuffisant, il quitta son emploi de professeur pour acquérir une station service dans le quartier noir de Birmingham. Sa mère, qui mena aussi ses études jusqu’au supérieur, était professeur dans le primaire. La famille Davis occupe dans un premier temps les logements sociaux de Birmingham. En 1948, elle quitte les petites maisons uniformes en briques rouges qui composent le logement social de la ville pour une vaste maison en bois2, dans un quartier qu’elle est la première famille noire à occuper3. Rapidement après son arrivée, elle est suivie par de nombreuses autres familles noires. Cette mixité nouvelle exacerbe les tensions raciales. En 1949 a lieu le premier attentat contre une des maisons nouvellement construites par des Noirs. Il est le premier d’une longue série qui donne au quartier son surnom de « Dynamite Hill »4.

Durant sa jeunesse, Davis est profondément marquée par son expérience du racisme, des humiliations de la ségrégation raciale et du climat de violence qui règne dans son environnement quotidien5. Cette expérience s’accompagne des premiers éléments de socialisation politique. La famille d’Angela y joue un rôle important. Ses deux parents possèdent une expérience militante : au lycée, sa mère a participé à des mouvements antiracistes, militant notamment pour la libération des Scottsboro Boys 4 . Ses deux parents sont par ailleurs membres de la National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Sa grand-mère maternelle, née quelques années après la Proclamation d'émancipation, lui parle de l’esclavage qu’avait

connu ses propres parents6. Ses premières vacances à New York, où elle goûte aux joies d’une vie non ségréguée dans la famille de son amie Margaret Burnham, sa future avocate, avive encore sa conscience des humiliations quotidiennes qu’impose la ségrégation7. Plusieurs nouveaux épisodes viendront lors de ses visites ultérieures- entre six et dix ans, elle passe la plus grande partie de ses étés à New York-, réviser son jugement sur la situation idéale des Noirs dans le Nord8.

Elle fréquente l’école primaire de Birmingham réservée aux Noirs. Abritée dans des bâtiments vétustes, elle est moins bien dotée financièrement que l’école réservée aux Blancs9. Davis note toutefois que la ségrégation avait aussi pour effet de laisser aux enseignants noirs une marge de liberté qui leur permettait d’orienter le contenu de leur enseignement dans un sens qui favorisait l’émergence d’une identité spécifiquement noire. Outre The Star Spangled Banner, l’hymne national américain, les enfants apprenaient et chantaient en classe l’Hymne national noir de James Weldon Johnson. Ils se voyaient enseigner la vie des personnages historiques noirs qui avaient marqué la vie du pays comme Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth ou Harriet Tubman 10 . Le modèle de réussite qui était proposé aux enfants noirs par les enseignants s’appuyait néanmoins selon elle sur une morale de la réussite individuelle qui masquait la dimension collective de la lutte qu’elle pensait devoir être mise en œuvre pour renverser le système raciste et libérer les Noirs de leur oppression11.

À quatorze ans, alors qu’elle se dit ennuyée par « le provincialisme de Birmingham »12, elle doit choisir son orientation pour le lycée. Deux opportunités s’offrent à elle : elle est acceptée dans l’école préparatoire de l'Université Fisk de Nashville, une des institutions réservées aux Noirs les plus prestigieuses du pays, et au sein d’un programme expérimental de l’organisation quaker American Friends Service Committee qui place des étudiants noirs du Sud dans des écoles mixtes du Nord12. Intégrer l’Université Fisk lui ouvrirait la voie des études médicales auxquelles elle se destine alors pour devenir pédiatre. La seconde option lui permettrait de rejoindre le lycée Elisabeth-Irwin, une école privée de Greenwich Village (New York) défendant les principes de l’éducation nouvelle. Après de longues hésitations, elle finit par choisir New York.

Les années new-yorkaises[modifier]

Son arrivée à New York marque une nouvelle étape dans sa socialisation politique. Elle est logée chez le révérend William Howard Melish. Pasteur de la plus grande église épiscopale de Brooklyn dans les années 1950, il avait perdu ses fonctions au terme d'un long bras de fer avec sa hiérarchie à cause de ses prises de position contre le maccarthisme et son affiliation à la Soviet-American Friendship Organization (Organisation de l’amitié américano-soviétique)13. Le corps enseignant du lycée Elisabeth Irwin que Davis a rejoint est dans sa grande majorité interdit d’enseignement dans le secteur public à cause de son positionnement politique marqué à gauche14. C’est dans ce nouvel environnement qu’elle entend pour la première fois parler du socialisme, s’avouant notamment fascinée par les expériences utopiques, comme celle de Robert Owen 5 . Elle lit le Manifeste communiste qui la conduit « à replacer les problèmes du peuple Noir dans le contexte plus large d’un mouvement de la classe ouvrière »5.

Elle est introduite au sein d’une organisation de jeunesse marxiste-léniniste nommée Advance. C’est sa première expérience du militantisme. Elle y côtoie des amies de longues dates comme Margaret Burnham ou Mary Lou Patterson mais rencontre aussi à cette occasion Bettina Aptheker, la fille de l’historien communiste Herbert Aptheker dont le domicile accueille la plupart des réunions du groupe15. Elle participe aux manifestations de soutien au mouvement des droits civiques qui connaît un nouvel élan avec la campagne de sit-in initiée le 1er février 1960 à Greensboro (Caroline du Nord). Davis a cependant le sentiment d’avoir quitté le Sud au moment où le mouvement prenait véritablement de l’ampleur et en éprouve une vive frustration. Elle se range néanmoins à l’avis de ses parents qui lui enjoignent de finir son année scolaire à New York15.

Études supérieures[modifier]

En 1962, elle obtient une bourse pour étudier à l’université de Brandeis dans le Massachusetts. Elle est l’une des trois étudiantes noires de première année16. Davis décrit cette première année comme une année d’isolement qu’elle « cultive de façon quelque peu romantique »16, se plongeant notamment dans les œuvres des existentialistes français (Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus...). Son année universitaire est marquée par une série de conférences de l'écrivain James Baldwin sur la littérature qui est interrompue par la crise des missiles de Cuba ; Baldwin refuse de poursuivre son exposé mais s’exprime sur le conflit lors d’une assemblée générale, aux côtés du philosophe Herbert Marcuse que Davis entend pour la première fois17. Elle occupe divers emplois pour financer un voyage en Finlande où se déroule le Festival mondial de la jeunesse et des étudiants 18 . Elle s’arrête à Londres et passe quelques jours à Paris et à Lausanne. À Helsinki, elle se montre particulièrement impressionnée par l’énergie dégagée par la représentation que donne la délégation cubaine19.

Lors de sa deuxième année à Brandeis, elle étudie la littérature et la philosophie française contemporaine ; Sartre en particulier continue de susciter son intérêt. Elle voit Malcolm X haranguer un amphithéâtre composé quasi exclusivement d’étudiants blancs, en leur annonçant la prochaine punition divine de leurs pêchés envers les Noirs20.

À l'issue de son cursus, Davis obtient une prolongation de sa bourse pour suivre le programme français de troisième année du Hamilton College. En septembre 1963, elle passe ainsi un mois à Biarritz 21 . C’est dans la station balnéaire française qu’elle apprend l’attentat qui a frappé l’église baptiste de sa ville natale de Birmingham où quatre jeunes filles sont tuées. Trois étaient de proches connaissances. Refusant d’y voir le résultat d’un comportement extrémiste isolé, elle analyse « cet événement violent et spectaculaire » comme l’expression paroxystique de « la routine quotidienne, souvent monotone, de l’oppression raciste »22. Elle passe novembre à Paris, puis l’été à Francfort où elle assiste à des conférences de Theodor W. Adorno. Sa formation intellectuelle se poursuit : elle lit Marcuse et de retour à Brandeis se rapproche du philosophe après avoir assisté à sa série de conférences sur la pensée politique européenne depuis la Révolution française 23 . Sur ses conseils, elle décide de partir étudier la philosophie à Francfort. Elle quitte les États-Unis en 1965, au milieu des émeutes de Watts.

En Allemagne, elle côtoie des étudiants allemands membres de l’Union socialiste allemande des étudiants, participe à des manifestations contre l'intervention militaire américaine au Viêt Nam ou contre la projection du film documentaire italien pro-colonisation Africa Addio et visite régulièrement Berlin-Est 24 .

Pendant son séjour en Allemagne, le mouvement de libération des Noirs connaît de profondes évolutions et tend à se radicaliser dans le sillage du slogan Black Power. Frustrée de ne pouvoir participer à l’effervescence militante qui semble régner dans son pays, elle décide de rentrer aux États-Unis à l’issue de sa deuxième année en Allemagne. Marcuse, désormais en poste à l’Université de San Diego, accepte de reprendre la direction de sa thèse, initialement tenue par Adorno25.

Positionnement politique[modifier]

Erich Honecker avec Angela Davis en 1972

À son arrivée à San Diego, elle est privée de tout contact au sein du mouvement noir californien et adhère en désespoir de cause à l’organisation radicale des étudiants du campus dont l’action se tourne principalement

vers la lutte contre la guerre du Viêt Nam 26 . Elle subit à cette occasion sa première arrestation suite à une distribution de tracts27. Souhaitant s’impliquer dans une action spécifique à destination des Noirs, elle travaille à organiser un conseil des étudiants noirs de l’université de San Diego, jusqu’alors inexistant. Sa première action est de participer à un comité de soutien à Ed Lynn, un soldat qui avait lancé une pétition contre la discrimination raciale dans l’armée28.

Son implication militante lui révèle la profonde désunion du mouvement de libération des Noirs et les très fortes rivalités qui le traversent. Elle-même occupe une position très minoritaire au sein du mouvement.

Sur le plan des objectifs, elle s’oppose au séparatisme de certaines des organisations du Black Nationalism qui pensent que la libération du peuple noir doit passer par une séparation de la société blanche et la fondation d’une Nation Noire sur le sol américain ou africain. Sur le plan des moyens, elle refuse la méthode consistant à exacerber les antagonismes entre Noirs et Blancs dans le but de provoquer des soulèvements spontanés similaires à ceux de Watts ou de Détroit dans lesquels certaines organisations voyaient les prémices d’un soulèvement généralisé du peuple afro-américain29.

Elle n’en refuse pas moins l’intégrationnisme qui fut la position de Martin Luther King. Le marxisme constitue un des éléments centraux de son positionnement : elle pense que la lutte de libération des Noirs doit s’insérer dans le mouvement révolutionnaire dont le socialisme constitue l’horizon30. Or le marxisme est rejeté par une grande partie des organisations nationalistes qui le désigne, à l’image de Stokely Carmichael, le leader du Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), comme étant « la chose de l’homme blanc »31. Les Blancs ont d’ailleurs été écartés des leviers de commande du SNCC à partir du printemps 1966. Pour les nationalistes, les Noirs ne doivent compter que sur leurs propres valeurs, leurs propres analyses et leurs propres forces pour se libérer.

Si Davis affiche son marxisme, elle hésite plus longuement avant de s’affilier au mouvement communiste. Elle met cette réticence initiale sur le compte de son parcours militant. En Allemagne notamment, elle s’est imprégnée d’un discours libertaire très critique à l’égard du communisme soviétique. Elle finit par adhérer en 1968 au Che-Lumumba Club, une section du parti communiste américain réservée aux Noirs. Elle rejoindra aussi le Black Panther Party dont la position révolutionnaire se caractérise par un égal refus de l’intégrationnisme et du séparatisme.

Une autre composante de son identité militante est son féminisme. Ce dernier est en partie nourri par son parcours militant au cours duquel elle se heurte au sexisme d’une partie du mouvement nationaliste noir voire d’une partie des organisations auxquelles elle appartient. On lui reproche notamment le rôle de leader qu’elle est amenée à assumer au sein du mouvement. Pour l’organisation United Slaves de Ron Karenga ou le poète Amiri Baraka (alors nommé Leroi Jones), le leadership masculin est un moyen pour les hommes noirs de regagner leur dignité face aux Blancs. La place des femmes au sein du mouvement ne peut être par conséquent que subordonnée à celle des hommes : les tâches domestiques et l’inspiration des leaders masculins sont les rôles qui leur sont dévolus. Davis estime au contraire qu’un authentique mouvement de libération doit lutter contre toutes les formes de domination : l’homme noir ne peut se libérer s’il continue d’asservir sa femme et sa mère32.

Le procès[modifier]

Son adhésion au parti communiste américain et au mouvement des Black Panthers lui vaut d'être surveillée par le FBI. Elle enseigne en 1969 à l'UCLA - l'université de Californie à Los Angeles - mais en est renvoyée à cause de son activisme politique. Elle s'investit dans le comité de soutien aux Frères de Soledad, trois prisonniers noirs américains accusés d'avoir assassiné un gardien en représailles de l'assassinat d'un de leur codétenu. Elle est accusée d'avoir organisé une prise d'otages dans un tribunal dont l'issue a été meurtrière : Jonathan Jackson, le jeune frère de George Jackson, le juge et deux autres prisonniers sont tués après que la police a ouvert le feu sur leur véhicule. Commence alors une cavale à travers les États-Unis : elle apparaît sur la liste des femmes les plus recherchées par le FBI. Ce dernier, dirigé par J. Edgar Hoover, lutte dans le cadre

du programme COINTELPRO contre les Black Panthers et les communistes dans un contexte de guerre froide et de guerre au Viêt Nam . Après deux semaines de cavale, elle est arrêtée dans un hôtel, puis emprisonnée pendant seize mois à New York puis en Californie, à San Marin puis à San José, avant d'être jugée et acquittée33. À New York, elle est d'abord placée dans une cellule d’isolement aménagée spécialement pour elle au sixième étage de la prison34. Elle entame une grève de la faim pour exiger son placement avec les autres détenues35 et, au dixième jour de grève, une décision du tribunal fédéral enjoint aux autorités pénitentiaires de suspendre son isolement, jugeant injustifié un régime exceptionnel motivé par les opinions politiques d’un détenu36. Le 5 janvier 1971, elle est officiellement inculpée par l’État de Californie de meurtre, kidnapping et conspiration. Transférée en Californie, elle comparaît avec Ruchell Magee, le seul survivant de la fusillade37.

Son affaire connaît un retentissement international. En France, Jean-Paul Sartre, Gerty Archimède, Pierre Perret et des milliers de manifestants la soutiennent.

Dès sa sortie de prison en 1972, Angela Davis se met à publier. Ses essais autant que ses discours véhéments en font l'une des intellectuelles radicales les plus connues de l'époque : la paix au Vietnam, l'antiracisme, le féminisme constituent son credo.

En 1980 et en 1984, Angela Davis se présente aux élections présidentielles américaines comme vice-présidente du candidat communiste Gus Hall.

Angela Davis : rebelle à la politique de son propre pays 38 , enseigne aujourd'hui l'Histoire de la Prise de conscience dans une université californienne.

De nos jours, Angela Davis est professeur d'histoire de la conscience à l'Université de Californie (campus de Santa Cruz). Elle fait campagne contre la guerre en Irak. Elle a reçu le Prix Thomas Merton en 2006. Angela Davis rejoint le « Comité international de soutien aux victimes vietnamiennes de l'agent orange et au procès de New York » (CIS) conduit par André Bouny. Elle lutte contre l'industrie carcérale et la peine de mort aux États-Unis et dans le monde.

Hommages[modifier]

• The Rolling Stones a publié en 1972 une chanson de soutien à Angela Davis, Sweet Black Angel, sur l'album Exile on Main Street.

• John Lennon et Yoko Ono ont soutenu Angela Davis dans une chanson intitulée Angela.• Pierre Perret dans la chanson Lily en 1977 : « Mais dans un meeting à Memphis, Lily / Elle a vu

Angela Davis, Lily / Qui lui dit viens ma petite sœur / En s'unissant on a moins peur / Des loups qui guettent le trappeur ».

• Daniel Balavoine dans la chanson Petite Angèle sur l'album Sauver l'amour (1985).• Juliette Noureddine la cite parmi ses modèles dans sa chanson Rimes féminines (1996).• Yannick Noah rend hommage à Angela Davis en 2010 avec sa chanson intitulée Angela.• Angela Davis est le sujet d'œuvres graphiques de Shepard Fairey (Obey Giant)39.

• Winston Mc Anuff dans la chanson Angla Davis de l'album A Bang joué avec la Bazbaz Orchestra.

Ouvrages[modifier]

• If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance (1971)• Frameup: The Opening Defense Statement Made (1972)• Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974)• Women, Race and Class (1981)• Violence Against Women and the Ongoing Challenge to Racism (1985) I• Women, Culture and Politics (1989) I• Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday (1999)• The Angela Y. Davis Reader (1999)• Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)• Les Goulags de la démocratie (2006)

Traduits en français

• Femmes, race et classe, trad. Dominique Taffin-Jouhaud et le collectif des femmes, 2e éd., Paris, Des femmes; Antoinette Fouque, DL 2007 (ISBN 978-2-7210-0552-6 )

• Les goulags de la démocratie: réflexions et entretiens, entretiens recueillis par Eduardo Mendieta, trad. Louis de Bellefeuille, Vauvert, Au diable vauvert, 2006, 156 p. (ISBN 2-84626-115-6 )

• "Angela Davis, Autobiographie", trad. Cathy Bernheim, ed. Albin Michel, (1975)

Bibliographie[modifier]

• Angela Davis parle, Angela Davis, Paris, Éditions sociales, 1971, 95 p.• S’ils frappent à la porte à l’aube, Angela Davis, Aptheker Bettina, Paris, Gallimard, 1972, 322 p.• Autobiographie, Angela Davis, Paris, Albin Michel, 1975, 344 p.• Les Goulags de la démocratie, Angela Davis, Réflexions et entretiens, Au Diable Vauvert, 2007

Filmographie[modifier]

• Angela Davis : Portrait d’une révolutionnaire, Du Luart Yolande, France, 1971, 90 min.

Notes et références[modifier]

1. ↑ C'est ainsi qu'elle se désignait elle-même dans un entretien avec Annette Levy-Willard, « Je m'identifie à l'"autre Amérique" », dans Libération du 14/10/2006, [lire en ligne [archive]]

2. ↑ Angela Davis, Autobiographie, Albin Michel, Paris, 1975, p. 79.3. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 80.4. ↑ a et b Davis (1975), p. 81.5. ↑ a, b et c Davis (1975), p. 107.6. ↑ Davis (1975), p .83.7. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 848. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 85.9. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 90.10. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 91.11. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 92.12. ↑ a et b Davis (1975), p. 102.13. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 105. Voir aussi sur ce point les archives Melish [archive] .14. ↑ Davis (1975), p.106.

15. ↑ a et b Davis (1975), p. 109.16. ↑ a et b Davis (1975), p. 114.17. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 115.18. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 116.19. ↑ Davis (1975), p .118.20. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 121.21. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 122.22. ↑ Davis (1975), p 124.23. ↑ Davis (1975), p.127.24. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 132.25. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 135- 137.26. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 144.27. ↑ Davis (1975), p 146.28. ↑ Daivs (1975), p. 148.29. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 150.30. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 142.31. ↑ Davis, (1975), p. 142.32. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 323.33. ↑ Nicole Bacharan, Histoire des noirs américains au XXe siècle, Paris : Édition Complexe, 1994, p. 23034. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 49.35. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 50.36. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 5437. ↑ Davis (1975), p. 256.38. ↑ elle a figuré parmi la (en)liste des « félons » recherchés par le FBI et atteint le rang de dissidente lors de son exil

après sa détention .39. ↑ http://www.thegiant.org/wiki/index.php/Angela_Davis_Small [archive]

Voir aussi[modifier]

Sur les autres projets Wikimedia :

• « Angela Davis », sur Wikimedia Commons (ressources multimédia)

Articles connexes[modifier]

• Black feminism • Parti communiste des États-Unis d'Amérique • Oppositions à la politique étrangère des États-Unis

Liens externes[modifier]

• Biographie • Vidéo: Angela Davis en 1975, elle revient sur son engagement en faveur de l'émancipation des Noirs

et des femmes, une archive de la Télévision suisse romande• Annette Levy-Willard, Je m'identifie à l'« autre Amérique », dans Libération du 14 octobre 2006,

[lire en ligne]• Angela Davis , 1er extraits sonores de prises de paroles• Angela Davis , 2e extraits sonores de prises de paroles

Précédé par Angela Davis Suivi par

? Candidat du Parti Communiste à la vice-présidence des États-

Unis

Soledad BrothersFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia(Redirected from Soledad brothers)Jump to: navigation, searchFor the blues-rock trio, see Soledad Brothers (band).

The Soledad Brothers were three African American inmates charged with the murder of white prison guard John V. Mills at California's Soledad Prison on January 16, 1970.[1] George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette were said to have murdered Mills in retaliation for the shooting deaths of three black prisoners during a prison fight in the exercise yard three days prior by another guard, Opie G. Miller.

Contents

[hide]

• 1 Soledad Prison • 2 Soledad Brothers Defense Committee • 3 Jonathan Jackson's attempt to free the Soledad Brothers • 4 San Quentin Six • 5 Trial • 6 Notes • 7 References

• 8 Further reading

[edit] Soledad Prison

On January 13, 1970, 14 black inmates and 2 white inmates from the maximum security section of Soledad Prison were released into a recreation yard for the first time in several months.[2][3] The black prisoners were ordered to the far end of the yard, while the white prisoners remained near the center of the yard.[3] Officer Opie G. Miller, an expert marksman armed with a rifle, watched over the inmates from a guard tower thirteen feet above the yard.[3] A fist fight ensued and with no warning shot, Miller opened fire on the prisoners below.[3] Three black inmates were killed in the shooting: W.L. Nolen and Cleveland Edwards died in the yard, while Alvin Miller died in the prison hospital a few hours later.[3] White inmate Billy D. Harris was wounded in the groin by Miller's fourth shot, and ended up losing a testicle.[3]

Following the incident, thirteen black prisoners began a hunger strike in the hopes of securing an investigation.[4] On January 16, 1970, a Monterey County grand jury convened, then exonerated Miller in the

deaths of Nolen, Edwards, and Miller with a ruling of "justifiable homicide".[3] No black inmates were permitted to testify, including those who had been in the recreation yard during the shooting.[3] In Soledad Prison, inmates heard the grand jury's ruling on the prison radio.[3] Thirty-minutes later, John V. Mills was found dying in another maximum security wing of the prison after having been beaten and thrown from a third-floor tier to the television room below.[3]

On February 14, 1970, after an investigation into Mills' death by prison officials, George Lester Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo and John W. Clutchette were indicted by the Monterey County grand jury for first degree murder.[3]

[edit] Soledad Brothers Defense Committee

The Soledad Brothers Defense Committee was formed by Fay Stender to assist in publicizing the case and raising funds to defend Jackson, Drumgo, and Clutchette. Among the wide variety of celebrities, writers, and political activists that supported the SBDC and their cause were Julian Bond, Kay Boyle, Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Noam Chomsky, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsburg, Tom Hayden, William Kunstler, Jessica Mitford, Linus Pauling, Pete Seeger, Benjamin Spock, and Angela Davis.[5][6][7] In June 1970, California State Senator Mervyn Dymally and the California Legislative Black Caucus pursed an investigation of Soledad Prison and released a report that helped legitimize the Committee.[8] By the middle of that month, Davis was leading the movement.[8]

[edit] Jonathan Jackson's attempt to free the Soledad Brothers

Main article: Marin County courthouse incident

On August 7, 1970, George Jackson's seventeen year old brother Jonathan Jackson held up a courtroom at the Marin County Civic Center, temporarily freed three San Quentin prisoners, and took Superior Court Judge Harold Haley, Deputy District Attorney Gary Thomas, and three female jurors hostage in a bid to secure the freedom of the "Soledad Brothers." Jackson, Haley, and prisoners William Christmas and James McClain were killed as they attempted to drive away from the courthouse. Haley died due to the discharge of a sawed-off shotgun which had been fastened to his neck with adhesive tape by the abductors. Thomas, prisoner Ruchell Magee, and one of the jurors were wounded.[9]

Angela Davis, who purchased the guns used in the escape attempt, was later tried and acquitted of charges in connection with the escape.

[edit] San Quentin Six

Main article: San Quentin Six

On August 21, 1971, days before his trial in the guard's killing, the 29-year-old Jackson launched an uprising at San Quentin with a 9 mm pistol. Gun in hand, he released an entire floor of prisoners from the maximum-security wing, crying, "This is it, gentlemen, the Dragon has come!" In the ensuing melee, three guards were killed, as were two prisoners suspected of being snitches, before George Jackson was killed by a guard.

[edit] Trial

In San Francisco, proceedings were held in the Department 21 courtroom on the third floor of the Hall of Justice, the same courtroom in which Ruchell Magee would later be tried on charges related to the murder of Judge Haley.[10][11] Spectators, including the press, were separated from the proceedings by a $15,000 floor-to-ceiling barrier constructed of metal, wood, and bullet-proof glass.[10][nb 1] On March 27, 1972, the two

surviving Soldedad Brothers—Clutchette and Drumgo—were acquitted by a San Francisco jury of the original charges of murdering a prison guard.[12]

[edit] Notes

1. ̂ The barrier was also reported to be soundproof, thereby requiring a public address system so that spectators could hear the proceedings.[10]

[edit] References

1. ̂ "Prison Guard Is Beaten to Death". Beaver County Times. January 17, 1970. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8bAiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=M7MFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3630,3871188&dq.2. ̂ Hatfield, Lary (January 7, 1985). "Last vestiges of radical movement will go on trial in Bingham case". The Day (New London, Connecticut: The Day Publishing Company): pp. 1, 4. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=RDlSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=RzYNAAAAIBAJ&pg=4907%2C1089678. Retrieved July 15, 2011.3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Aptheker, Bettina (1969). The Morning Breaks: The Trial of Angela Davis. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801485975. http://books.google.com/books?id=yA9vwr6g8cMC.4. ̂ "Negro Prisoners Begin Hunger Strike in Bid for Investigation". The Bulletin. January 15, 1970. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zKQSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HPcDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1453,3541718&dq=miller+guard&hl=en.5. ̂ Andrews, Lori (1999) [1996] Black Power, White Blood: The Life and Times of Johnny Spain Philadelphia: Temple University Press p. 130 ISBN 1566397502, 9781566397506 http://books.google.com/books?id=UKmKSuzduK8C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false6. ̂ Bernstein, Lee (2010) "The Age of Jackson: George Jackson and the Radical Critique of Incarceration" America is the Prison: Arts and Politics in Prison in the 1970s Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press p. 54 ISBN 0807871176, 9780807871171 http://books.google.com/books?id=a3yRlKxxDtkC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA51#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved July 12, 20117. ̂ Scott, Austin (October 18, 1970). "New Rebellion Brewing Inside Nation's Prisons". The Tuscaloosa News. AP (Tuscaloosa, Alabama). http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=oCgeAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NbkEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7115%2C3538937. Retrieved July 13, 2011.8. ^ a b http://books.google.com/books?id=yA9vwr6g8cMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false9. ̂ "Justice: A Bad Week for the Good Guys". TIME. August 1970. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,909547-1,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-04.10. ^ a b c Streeter, Harold V. (August 29, 1971). "'Soledad Brothers' Conflict Incites 11 Violent Deaths" (pdf). San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, California). http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White%20%20Files/San%20Quentin/San%20Quentin%20097.pdf. Retrieved July 21, 2010.11. ̂ Streeter, Harold V. (August 18, 1972). "Magee Trial - Dullsville Revisited" (pdf). San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, California). http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White%20%20Files/San%20Quentin/San%20Quentin%20748.pdf. Retrieved July 21, 2010.12. ̂ "Acquit Soledad Brothers", Pacific Stars and Stripes, March 29, 1972, p1

[edit] Further reading

• Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson (1970) ISBN 1-55652-230-4• Min S Yee. The Melancholy History of Soledad Prison; In Which a Utopian Scheme Turns Bedlam (1973) ISBN 0-06-129800-X