Activist and educator Angela Davis is being inducted this September into the National Women’s Hall of Fame for her historic achievements in social justice and education.
The National Women’s Hall of Fame, which was founded in 1969, is America’s oldest membership organization and museum dedicated to honouring and celebrating the achievements of distinguished American women.
The organization announced Wednesday that it will honour the achievements of Davis, along with nine other women, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, actress and activist Jane Fonda, and activist Rose O’Neill.
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Writer and educator Davis and the other inductees were nominated by the public, judged by an interdisciplinary team of experts across the nominees’ fields, and selected for their invaluable contributions to American Society in the areas of the arts, athletics, business, education, government, humanities, philanthropy, and science.
“We are pleased to add these American women to the ranks of inductees whose leadership and achievements have changed the course of American history,” said Betty Bayer, president of The National Women’s Hall of Fame.
To date, 266 women have been inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame since its creation. The 2019 inductees will be recognized at an awards ceremony in New York, which will also celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote.
Davis, the University of California Santa Cruz emerita professor, is known for her contribution to the Civil Rights Movements and her fight for the rights of the marginalised people in the world.
Born in 1944, the American writer and feminist was involved in political activism at a young age and this put her at loggerheads with the government. She has been arrested a number of times and was even listed as FBI’s top 10 most wanted fugitive in 1970.
In October that year, she was arrested after a warrant was issued on the charges of aggravated kidnapping and first-degree murder in the death of Judge Harold Haley. However, after 16 months in prison and 4 months of trial proceedings, on June 4, 1972, an all-white jury acquitted her of all the charges.
A former member of the Black Panther Party and the Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Davis recently made headlines when an Alabama rights group decided to reinstate an honour it had earlier rescinded over her support for the Palestinians.
Her never-ending fight for the minorities has earned her many awards and accolades and has made her a formidable force in the world.
Below is a profile of Davis by the National Women’s Hall of Fame:
Dr. Angela Davis is a prominent political activist, academic scholar, and author of numerous groundbreaking works. Well-known for her emphasis on the ways that justice is “indivisible,” Dr. Davis has spent a lifetime working on civil rights and women’s rights, against the prison industrial complex and for international justice.
Dr. Davis’ teaching career has taken her to numerous college campuses across the United States, and she has also given lectures in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America.
She spent 15 years at the University of California Santa Cruz where she is now Distinguished Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness (an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program) and of Feminist Studies. Dr. Davis’ works have emboldened generations of students to critically address and respond actively to contemporary issues of injustice. Her powerful voice remains instructive today.
