In 1969, Angela Davis, a twenty-six-year-old black activist, was fired from her teaching position at UCLA, accused of involvement in a shootout that resulted in the deaths of four men, put on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, and spent several months as a fugitive. In October, she was arrested in New York and returned to California to stand trial. Her image became the focus and the tool of an unprecedented international effort to free an incarcerated black woman. Her trial and acquittal, in 1972, made her a lightning rod for fears and hopes on the right and left about revolutionary change and she has remained an active agent of change in the years since.
This exhibition focuses on Davis and her image. It provides a compelling and layered narrative of Davis’s journey through the junctures of race, gender, and economic and political policy. The exhibition is inspired by an archive in Oakland, California, collected and curated by Lisbet Tellefsen. This archive of materials includes materials produced by an international community that assembled to protect Davis in a campaign to “Free Angela and All Political Prisoners.” It also contains magazines, press photography, court sketches, videos, music, writings, and correspondence. Materials also document her activist work in defense of the Soledad Brothers, her teaching, and her philosophical and activist writings on issues related to freedom, oppression, feminisms, and prison abolition.
Hirmer Verlag 192 Seiten 39,90 €