Angela Davis and the Importance of Academic Freedom

Words Matter

Dr. Angela Davis is an activist, philosopher, academic and author.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama during World War II - she attended segregated black elementary and middle schools in the 1950s.

Davis studied philosophy at Brandis University and did her graduate work in Germany with famed philosopher Herbert Marcuse.

She would later say that: “Herbert Marcuse taught me that it was possible to be an academic, an activist, a scholar, and a revolutionary.”

After returning to the United States, Angela Davis joined the Communist Party, became involved in the Black Panther Party, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, second-wave feminism and actively protested the War in Vietnam.

In 1969 Angela Davis became an acting Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Los Angeles.

That same year the University of California initiated a policy against hiring Communists.[

At their September 19, 1969, meeting, the Board of Regents - urged on by then-Governor Ronald Regan, fired Professor Davis from her teaching post because of her political beliefs.”

On October 8th 1969, Angela Davis gave a speech at UCLA protesting her dismissal.

“Education” she told a cheering student audience, “should not mold the mind according to a prefabricated architectural plan. It should rather liberate the mind. Because the mind has to be liberated in order to perceive the world, to see society, to understand what its advantages are, what its disadvantages are.”

In that same speech Angela Davis drew persuasive links between the suppression of academic freedom, academic and social institutional racism, and the rise of totalitarianism in German during the 1930s.

Later that month Angela Davis was reinstated by a California Superior Court judge and completed teaching the 1969-70 academic year.

With that - let’s listen to Angela Davis talk about academic freedom, institutional racism and the dangers of totalitarianism.

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