Angela Yvonne Davis is an American activist, scholar, and author known for her significant contributions to the civil rights movement and her advocacy for prison reform.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Davis became prominent in the 1960s as a leader of the Communist Party USA and held close ties with the Black Panther Party. Her involvement in the civil rights movement and her advocacy for prisoner rights have been among her enduring interests.

Davis studied at several institutions, including Brandeis University, the University of Frankfurt, and the University of California, San Diego, before completing doctoral studies in East Germany at the University of Berlin. In the United States, she became involved with the second-wave feminist movement and campaigns against the Vietnam War.

She was hired as an assistant professor of philosophy at UCLA in 1969, but was later dismissed due to her political affiliations. Her legal struggles included being falsely accused of conspiracy to murder in 1970, but she was acquitted in 1972.

During the 1980s, she ran twice as the Communist Party's candidate for vice president. Davis co-founded Critical Resistance in 1997 and later contributed to establishing the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism in 1991.

She served as a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in the feminist studies department, where she retired in 2008. Davis has received numerous awards for her work, including the Lenin Peace Prize and induction into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Despite controversies surrounding her political views, Davis remains a highly influential figure known for her dedication to social justice and equality.