In 1969, the legendary author and activist Angela Davis was a newly
minted assistant philosophy processor at UCLA. But she was also an
avowed Communist, and as a result, then-Governor Ronald Regan
tried to have her fired before she’d begun any actual teaching. No
luck: Davis’s dismissal didn’t hold up in court, and her first class
had to be moved to a bigger classroom to accommodate the
speeches.
Davis was an outspoken supporter of the Black Panthers and was
fervently against the Vietnam War, but arguably her most scandalous
activist activities at the time were in defense of the Soledad Brothers,
three Black inmates imprisoned in Soledad, CA, who were accused
of killing a white guard. In 1970, guns registered to Davis were used
in an attack on the nearby Marin County Civic Center; the
perpetrators hoped to take hostages to bargain for the inmates’
release, but instead left four casualties. Davis, despite not being
at the scene, was charged with murder, kidnapping, and crimina
l conspiracy charges. She couldn’t be found, and so on August 18, 1970,
by order of J. Edgar Hoover, Davis became the third woman ever to
be included on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.
Eight weeks later, Davis was finally arrested in a New York motel;
the trial that followed catapulted her to international fame—and
her as a political prisoner, chanted “Free Angela!” across the globe.
an all-white jury. “It took a worldwide movement of people to acquit
Miss Davis,” noted one of her attorneys, Howard Moore Jr., but it
shouldn’t have. “Justice should be the routine of the system,” he added.
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