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Born on January 26, 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama, radical black activist, author and academic Angela Davis received a B.A. (magna cum laude) from Brandeis University in 1965. She later studied as a doctoral candidate at the University of California, San Diego, under the Marxist professor and One Dimensional Man'(1964) author Herbert Marcuse.

Davis worked to free the Soledad (Prison) Brothers, African-American prisoners held in California during the late 1960s. 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.

She's the author of Women, Race and Class and Women, Culture and Politics. Her latest book is Blues Legacies and Black Feminism. She teaches at UC Santa Cruz