[Music]
Who is Angela Davis?
Angela Davis is a human rights 
activist, a scholar, and an author. 
She came to prominence in the late '60s 
and early '70s during the black power era.
During that time, she became involved with 
the prison movement because she was accused 
of complicity in a murder that took place. 
She spent sixteen months in jail and she was already 
concerned about the conditions of prisoners but 
as she came to know the prisoners and what it was 
actually like to be a prisoner herself, she gained 
a lot more interest and passion for that movement.
The Free Angela button is on display 
at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of 
 
African American History and Culture. 
What does the button say?
 
The button Free Angela and All Political Prisoners. 
That button represents the movement that rose when 
 
she was in prison. So and that’s one of the 
reasons that she was ultimately acquitted, 
 
because this huge movement took place. 
Not just in the United States but internationally. 
 
And those buttons were worn by people and 
there were protests taking place all over 
 
the place including outside of her prison.
 
Everyone knows those basic facts, the 
“I believe” speech from Martin Luther King.
But no one hears about the women in history. 
 
That’s one of the reasons that I’m so interested 
in African American culture and history now in 
my life and the work that I do now. 
Why are you interested in this subject?
Well I feel like it’s really important to 
learn about American history and also like 
African American history because you know 
I’m a minority, I’m black. I should be aware 
of these things culturally. And also, you 
can’t grow from any of these experiences 
without learning from what 
has happened in the past.
The idea of a political prisoner in 
the seventies came to mean literally 
anyone who was incarcerated, especially 
a person of color. Because the idea is that 
the system itself is oppressive. 
Even though you yourself may not 
have been an actual activist, if you are 
arrested like George Jackson was, 
because you’re poor and black and end up
spending the rest of your life in prison, 
then you’re a political prisoner.  
So they were kind of targeting like the 
whole justice system. Once you start solving 
one problem, it starts like a domino effect.
We solve like equal rights in women. 
Maybe we can solve minority rights. 
Because we’ve already come together 
as women of all color. It kind 
of like backpedals on eachother.     
And if you look at the Civil Rights movement 
that was initially focused on segregation 
or ending legal segregation and voting 
rights, that branched out into women’s 
movements and other ethnic movements as well. 
So ultimately other people benefitted from the 
Civil Rights movement. 
