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Although Angela Y. Davis was once labeled a dangerous, hardened criminal, she describes herself as a Black woman who is a Communist, a woman who has dedicated her "life to the struggle for the life of Black people," the struggle against racism and sexism. Her rhetoric is both radical and revolutionary, and as an orator, she captures the devastating impacts of both immediate and longterm oppression. In her speeches, Davis identifies and examines the myriad interconnections between past and present; she explores the connections between racism and sexism, economic oppression and violence, and the impending nuclear annihilation brought about by the government's domestic and foreign policies. Throughout her speeches, she presents a vision of a world without any of these foes: a world in which African-American women and men live in health, safety, and respect; a world in which children are free to grow, play, and learn without physical or mental harassment and harm; and a world in which the human spirit is strong not because it refuses to be broken but because it is nurtured, valued, and encouraged. Davis's skill and contribution as an orator rest in her ability to call attention to the subtle and the overt oppression that occurs in the present and the past while simultaneously building a vision of a safer and healthier future.

Born on January 27, 1944, Davis grew up in the neighborhood known as Dynamite Hill in Birmingham, Alabama. The nickname "Dynamite Hill" was given to the area because of the numerous bombings that took place in itbombings designed to prohibit African-Americans from moving and living there. As a young child, she writes in her autobiography, Davis learned the lessons of racism and poverty well and vowed to herself that she would never wish she were white, regardless of the privileges afforded to those with the "right" skin color. In elementary school, she learned more than the mechanics of reading, writing, and arithmetic; she learned "that just because one is hungry, one does not have the right to a good meal; or when one is cold, to warm clothing, or when one is sick, to medical care."

Davis attended high school in Birmingham until her junior year and then, looking for greater academic challenges, entered Elizabeth Irwin High School in New York City. In her history classes there, Davis was exposed to communism, where the theories in the Communist Manifesto hit her "like a bolt of lightning." In the Manifesto, she found answers to the dilemmas of racial oppression with which she had struggled as a young child and began to get a sense of how emancipation for black people might become a reality. In 1961, Davis entered Brandeis University to study French literature and spent her junior year abroad in France. From an American newspaper in France, she learned of the murder of four young girls in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama -- three of whom were friends of her family. She described her grief and fury over these brutal and senseless killings: "No matter how much I talked, the people around me were simply incapable of grasping it. They could not understand why the whole society was guilty of this murderwhy their beloved Kennedy was also to blame, why the whole ruling stratum in their country, by being guilty of racism, was also guilty of this murder."

Committed to social change and possessing a burning desire to study philosophy, Davis, after her return to Brandeis, scheduled a meeting with Herbert Marcuse, who was teaching at Brandeis. This first meeting grew into weekly discussions of her readings on the philosophers he suggested. In her last year at Brandeis, Davis applied for and received a scholarship to study philosophy in Frankfurt. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Brandeis, she left to study in Germany. The civil rights struggle in America and her intense desire to be a part of it brought her home from Germany in 1967, before she completed her graduate studies, but not before Marcuse had agreed to direct her dissertation at the University of California in San Diego. Davis took her first teaching job at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1969 before completing her degree. Engaged in the civil rights movement in Southern California, a member of the Black Panthers, and a member of the Communist party, she apparently was more than the Board of Regents could handle. Fired from her teaching position at UCLA because of her political views, reinstated, and then fired again, Davis's life became more dramatic, public, and revolutionary. In 1970, Davis was placed on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list on charges of murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy after guns registered in her name were used in a failed attempt to take hostages from a Marin County courthouse in exchange for several black political prisoners. She was incarcerated without bail for twenty months and finally was acquitted of all charges in 1972. All of Davis's papers were seized by the FBI at the time of her arrest, including her work on her dissertation, and she has yet to see any of them returned to her. . .

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