June 4 - BlackFacts.com Black History Minute

BlackFacts.com: Learn/Teach/Create Black History

BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for June 4.

Angela Davis was acquitted by a white jury.

She is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, and author of over ten books on class, feminism, race, and the US prison system.

Born to an African-American family in Birmingham, Alabama, Davis studied French at Brandeis University and philosophy at the University of Frankfurt in West Germany.

After returning to the United States, she joined the Communist Party and became involved in numerous causes, including the second-wave feminist movement and the campaign against the Vietnam War.

Championing the cause of black prisoners in the 1960s and ’70s, Davis grew particularly attached to a young revolutionary, George Jackson, one of the so-called Soledad Brothers (after Soledad Prison).

Jackson’s brother Jonathan was among the four persons killed—including the trial judge—in an abortive escape and kidnapping attempt from the Hall of Justice in Marin County, California.

Suspected of complicity, Davis was sought for arrest and became one of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s most wanted criminals.

Arrested in New York City in October 1970, she was returned to California to face charges of kidnapping, murder, and conspiracy. Across the nation, thousands of people began organizing a movement to gain her release.

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