Contextualizing Angela Davis: The Agency and Identity of an Icon

Joy James investigates the educational, political, and ideological contexts that shaped Angela Davis's public persona, exploring the paradigms and platforms that leveraged her into recognition as an activist and radical intellectual. Her chronology marks key events relevant to Davis, Black communities, and the US, highlighting the centrality of those considered ancillary to US liberation movements.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 25 January 2024
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Few people recognize the educational, political, and ideological contexts that shaped Angela Davis' public persona despite her iconic status on the international stage. To better understand Davis' agency and identity, Joy James delves into the paradigms and platforms that propelled her into recognition as an activist and radical intellectual. James' chronology spans from Davis' birthplace in Alabama in 1944 to her surrogate political family in California in 1970, investigating the contexts that shaped her life.

Key events in Davis' life, as well as those of Black communities and the US, are marked in her chronology, including:

Anti-Black repression under Jim Crow: The racial discrimination and violence experienced by Black individuals in the South, particularly during the era of segregation.
Black bourgeois southern families: The social and economic dynamics of Black families in the South, who were often part of the educated elite but faced discrimination and marginalization.
Revolutionaries: Individuals who were actively involved in political movements and revolutions, seeking to bring about social and political change.
Elite education: Davis' education at prestigious institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied philosophy and history and became a graduate student.
Communist parties: Davis' involvement with communist parties and her support for socialist and communist ideologies.
International travels: Davis' travels to various countries and her engagement with international political movements and organizations.
Undergraduate and graduate schooling: Davis' education at both undergraduate and graduate levels, which included studies in political science, history, and philosophy.

All of these events and contexts interconnected and played a part in Davis' rise in stature from persecution as a UC graduate student to the UC Presidential chair some three decades later.

In the context of 21st-century US democracy and the rise of neofascists, James highlights the centrality of those considered ancillary to US liberation movements. She unpacks the contradictions of iconography and revolutionary agency and shows how a triumphal figure from a symbolic era of struggle became the icon of the rare peoples' victory.

Through her meticulous research and analysis, James provides a fresh perspective on Angela Davis' life and legacy, challenging traditional narratives and revealing the complex and multifaceted contexts that shaped her remarkable journey.

Weight: 398g
Dimension: 157 x 234 x 22 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350368637