Angela Davis in conversation

Born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1944, Davis grew up in a neighbourhood that was once dubbed ‘Dynamite Hill’ owing to the number of African American homes that were bombed by the Klu Klux Klan. She studied philosophy at Brandeis University, the University of Frankfurt, and the University of California, San Diego.

At the latter Davis became associated with several left-wing and activist groups including the Black Panthers, whilst working primarily with an all-Black branch of the Communist Party known as the Che-Lumumba Club. In 1969 Davis was fired, unjustly, from her position as assistant professor in philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles, for holding membership of the Communist Party.

After a botched escape attempt at the trial of George Jackson – one of three men accused of killing a prison guard at Soledad Prison – led to the death of several people in the courtroom, Davis’ connections to the accused saw her tried for several charges, including murder. She would spend about a year and a half in jail before finally being acquitted in 1972. Following her acquittal, Davis toured as a lecturer, speaking not only in the US, but also in Cuba, the Soviet Union and East Germany.

In later years Davis returned to teaching, with posts at the San Francisco State University, University of California, and Rutgers University, and in 1997 co-founded the organisation Critical Resistance, which aims to dismantle what it terms the ‘prison-industrial complex’. Davis is also the author of several books, including Women, Race, and Class (1980), Women, Culture and Politics (1989) and The Meaning of Freedom (2012).

In March 2017 Davis joined us at the Southbank Centre as part of that year’s WOW – Women of the World festival. In conversation with the festival organiser Jude Kelly, Davis talked on the subjects of women, race and class in the post-Trump era.

‘After I wrote Women, Race and Class in 1981, I was being called a feminist. And my response then was I’m not a feminist, I’m a revolutionary Black woman. But, over the years Black women, women of colour, have redefined the project of feminism. And so the feminism that’s on the rise today is an intersectional feminism.’

Angela Davis