Angela Davis: podcast appearances and interviews

Angela Yvonne Davis, born January 26, 1944, is an American Marxist feminist political activist, philosopher, academic, author, and social theorist. She has held the position of Distinguished Professor Emerita of Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Davis has been active in various movements including the Occupy movement and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. She was a longstanding member of the Communist Party USA and is a founding member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. Her academic background includes studies at Brandeis University, the University of Frankfurt, the University of California, San Diego, and the Humboldt-University of Berlin in East Germany. After returning to the United States, she engaged in activism related to the second-wave feminist movement and opposition to the Vietnam War.

In 1969 she became an assistant professor of philosophy at UCLA. Her affiliation with the Communist Party led to her firing by UCLA's governing Board of Regents, a decision later reversed in court but ultimately upheld on other grounds. In 1970, Davis was involved in an armed courtroom takeover in Marin County, California, which resulted in the deaths of four people. She was prosecuted on multiple charges including conspiracy to murder, held in jail for over a year, and was acquitted of all charges in 1972. She is often regarded as a political prisoner. In 1991, she helped establish the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism after leaving the Communist Party USA. She joined the feminist studies department at UC Santa Cruz, where she served as department director before retiring in 2008.

Davis has been recognized with numerous awards such as the Soviet Union's Lenin Peace Prize and induction into the National Women's Hall of Fame. She has been a controversial figure due to her political views and support for the Soviet Union. Her influence has been acknowledged through various accolades, including her listing as one of Time magazine's 100 Women of the Year in 2020 and one of the 100 most influential people in the world the same year. In 2025, she received an Honorary Doctorate in Letters from the University of Cambridge.