Davis, Angela Yvonne (1944- )

US left-wing activist for African-American rights, prominent in the student movement of the 1960s. In 1970 she went into hiding after being accused of supplying guns used in the murder of a judge, who had been seized as a hostage in an attempt to secure the release of three black convicts. She was captured, tried, and acquitted. At the University of California she studied under Herbert Marcuse, and was assistant professor of philosophy at the Los Angeles campus 1969-70. In 1980 she was the Communist vice-presidential candidate.