Radical Black leader, author, and Communist. Davis was born on January 26, 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama. Her mother, Sallye E. Davis, had been politically active since her college days, and Angela participated in demonstrations with her mother from the time she was in elementary school. To insure her a better education, her parents sent her to Elizabeth Irwin High School, a private progressive school in New York. The school had many radical teachers and students, and Angela soon joined a Marxist study group.

Davis received a B.A. from Brandeis University in 1965. She later studied as a doctoral candidate at the University of California, San Diego — mentored by Professor Herbert Marcuse. The author of One Dimensional Man, Marcuse would go on to influence much of the New Left through his mixture of Freudian and Marxian theories.

Davis joined the Communist Party in 1968 and suffered discrimination like many blacks during the late 1960s for her personal political beliefs and commitment to revolutionary ideals. From 1969-1970, she taught philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles. Despite her qualifications and excellent teaching record, the California Board of Regents refused to renew her appointment as a philosophy lecturer in 1970.

Davis worked to free the "Soledad Prison Brothers", African-American prisoners held in California during the late 1960's. She befriended George Jackson, one of the prisoners. On August 7, 1970, during an abortive escape and kidnap attempt from Marin County's Hall of Justice, the trial judge and three people were killed, including Jackson's brother Jonathan. Although not at the crime scene, Davis was implicated when police claimed that the guns used had been registered in her name.

Davis fled underground and was consequently listed on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted Criminals list, sparking one of the most intensive manhunts in recent American history. Californian Governor Ronald Reagan publicly vowed that Davis would never teach in that state again. She was captured in New York City in August 1970, but was freed eighteen months later and cleared of all charges in 1972 by an all white jury. During this period an international Free Angela Davis movement had grown, and Davis used the momentum to found the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, which remains active today.

Despite the right-wing threats of Reagan, Davis immediately resumed teaching at San Francisco State University, where she continued to teach for twelve years.

Continuing to be a strong leader within the Communist Party USA, she ran for vice president alongside Communist presidential candidate Gus Hall in both the 1980 and 1984 elections. However, her ties with the Communist Party ended in 1991. During the Communist coup against reformer Mikhail Gorbachev that year, Davis sided with Gorbachev and subsequently left the party. She and her expelled comrades went on to work with the group Committees of Correspondence, which seeks to unite all radical socialist groups in the United States. She is still a member even today.

A brilliant speaker, Davis has lectured in all 50 states and internationally. Her acclaimed books include If They Come In The Morning (1971); Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974); Women, Race & Class (1981); Women, Culture and Politics (1989); The Angela Y. Davis Reader (1998); and Blues Legacies & Black Feminism (1999). In 1994, despite Republican objections, she was appointed to a presidential chair at the University of California - Santa Cruz, where she is currently a Professor in the History of Consciousness Department.

She is currently a member of the Advisory Board of the Prison Activist Resource Center. She now focuses on exposing racism that is a strong part of the US prison system (which she calls the Punishment Industry, pointing to the increase in prison labor for private industries). Furthering this issue, she has joined most on the Left in supporting the imprisoned former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal.