A civil rights leader on the front line, Angela Davis has continued to revolutionize the way America thinks about civil rights since her beginnings during the Civil Rights movement. Angela Davis is the most influential person in American society because she affected the politics of prison inmates’ and civil rights during the 1960s-1970s time period. Davis was born on January 26, 1944, in Dynamite Hill, Birmingham, Alabama (Davis 1944, 2015). When she was born, the South had a set of laws and caste system called Jim Crow that repressed the black population post-Reconstruction. Her hometown, Dynamite Hill’s name originated from the houses that belonged to the Blacks living there, of which were bombed by the terrorist group, the Ku Klux Klan
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Davis was the 1979 recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize from the USSR, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Guard, 1979). Davis’ influence and extensive work for civil rights and prison reform earned her this prize 37 years ago. Her reach as a radical American Marxist phenomenon not only circulated around America but also could be found across the Atlantic Ocean. In 2006, The Thomas Merton Center awarded Davis with their 2006 prize. As of late, the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art nominated Davis along with Gloria Steinem for their first Sackler Center Award (WITW, 2015). Her trailblazing and intensive efforts to stimulate the conversation about civil and prison reform was rewarded and honored by these nominations and awards as an exemplification of her great bravery and …show more content…
When she was in school, Davis would create interracial study groups, and because of the segregated, hostile time in that time, were broken up by the police (Angela Davis, 2016). Davis was so left-wing and had been defying the segregation norm to the point where police had to get involved. Her civil rights campaigns were mostly backed by her Marxist ideologies and the fact that she was a Communist (Davis, 1981). The Communist Party during that time period strongly believed in communism’s message of utopia and equality. Because Davis was a communist, her beliefs of equality grabbed the attention of many blacks and whites in America. When Davis had gotten back from Germany for a position at University of California, San Diego, she attended a conference that featured Stokely Carmichael. She was disappointed by the speakers praise for black nationalism and labeling communism as something that cannot be adopted by black men. In response to that, she also was an active member of the Black Panther Party and the Che-Lumumba Club, an all-black branch of the Communist Party, U.S.A. (Angela Davis Biography, 2016). The Black Panthers and the Che-Lumumba gave Davis a platform to speak her mind, thus helping her influence penetrate all open, reasonable American minds. Davis used her communist platform to shed truth on the
Davis was the 1979 recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize from the USSR, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Guard, 1979). Davis’ influence and extensive work for civil rights and prison reform earned her this prize 37 years ago. Her reach as a radical American Marxist phenomenon not only circulated around America but also could be found across the Atlantic Ocean. In 2006, The Thomas Merton Center awarded Davis with their 2006 prize. As of late, the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art nominated Davis along with Gloria Steinem for their first Sackler Center Award (WITW, 2015). Her trailblazing and intensive efforts to stimulate the conversation about civil and prison reform was rewarded and honored by these nominations and awards as an exemplification of her great bravery and …show more content…
When she was in school, Davis would create interracial study groups, and because of the segregated, hostile time in that time, were broken up by the police (Angela Davis, 2016). Davis was so left-wing and had been defying the segregation norm to the point where police had to get involved. Her civil rights campaigns were mostly backed by her Marxist ideologies and the fact that she was a Communist (Davis, 1981). The Communist Party during that time period strongly believed in communism’s message of utopia and equality. Because Davis was a communist, her beliefs of equality grabbed the attention of many blacks and whites in America. When Davis had gotten back from Germany for a position at University of California, San Diego, she attended a conference that featured Stokely Carmichael. She was disappointed by the speakers praise for black nationalism and labeling communism as something that cannot be adopted by black men. In response to that, she also was an active member of the Black Panther Party and the Che-Lumumba Club, an all-black branch of the Communist Party, U.S.A. (Angela Davis Biography, 2016). The Black Panthers and the Che-Lumumba gave Davis a platform to speak her mind, thus helping her influence penetrate all open, reasonable American minds. Davis used her communist platform to shed truth on the