Angela Davis: An Autobiography - A Journey Through One Woman's Life

Dkb: I wanted to know everything about this period of time, so I purchased all of her books including this one. It drags a bit - very wordy

United States on Aug 08, 2023

Jorge Jiménez Hernández: Gripping story. Must read.

Spain on Aug 20, 2021

MrsOcquaye: When this book arrived, I couldn’t wait to dive in. I was so interested in the remarkable life of Angela Davis. But, this book did not capture me. The entire time, I felt like I was reading a text book. At one point, I found myself, writing notes and looking up words as if I was preparing for a test. Maybe Ms. Davis purposely wrote the book this way, but I just couldn’t enjoy this read. Now, I do realize this book was published in 1974, but it’s no excuse for the lack of passion. I feel she could have wrote a better autobiography. The book did not meet my expectations and if I were you, I would just use Google if you want to learn about her.

United States on Jun 19, 2021

Amazon Customer: This was an amazing biography by Miss Angela Yvonne Davis! It took me about a month to read this fascinating book about Angela Davis. From her childhood in Alabama to a professor in California to her arrest and being found 'not guilty' she is my 'shero'! Miss Davis never gave up her fight for her freedom and I cried at the ending of the book. Miss Davis is not only smart and outspoken but she is a very beautiful Black woman, both inside and out! May God bless Miss Angela Yvonne Davis for being who she is and may she continue to fight for the rights of all people!

Canada on Dec 27, 2020

Ron: i read more than half of it, then stopped, for a year or more. picked it back up, did not much remember what i'd already read, relieved to finish it. It a pertinent story, thats for sure: davis' life, childhood, education, time abroad in europe and cuba, activism, time in jail, trial. the prose is just so plodding. it took a while to finish it because the style was so basic. i dont regret reading it, but i cant recommend it...

Canada on Nov 13, 2020

Music Lover: Important history

Canada on Jun 09, 2020

Amazon Customer: I was a little daunted when I first received this book given that it is approximately 400 pages long with relatively small sized print, but once I started I could not put Angela Davis: An Autobiography down.

Having completed Angela Davis: An autobiography Inow feel I know and understand Dr Davis very well. She comes across as a very humble, likeable, unselfish and relatable woman. This memoir covers the most significant aspects of her life at the time of writing including her family/ upbringing, her close friends and comrades, her education, her arrest and trial, her teaching and firing, her trip to Cuba and her decision making around joining the Communist Party.

By reading this memoir you will not only learn a great deal about Angela you will be introduced to many other topics incl: mass movement, organizing, communism, socialism, capitalism, political prisoners, prison reform, the Black Liberation Struggle, feminism, Soledad, San Quentin,m etc etc I could go on an on. A well put together, thoughtful memoir that also serves as a good overview of the Civil Rights struggle in the USA. I highly recommend.

United States on Feb 09, 2020

chainmailgoddess: Fascinating read full of history that jumps from bit to bit of Angela's past. I read it for bookclub otherwise I wouldn't have picked it up buit I enjoyed learning about the first 40 odd years of her life. What a life!

Canada on Jul 28, 2018

Lowell B. Denny: Davis of often described as a Black Panther Party member. While she was very active with the BPP, she joined a Communist Party youth group in high school and joined the CPUSA as an adult while she was still in graduate school. This autobiography, which she has said she did not want to write as she was too young, details not only her famous trial but also her development and awakening into the reality that capitalism has no future and the promise of communism to meet people's needs over profits. I've never seen this book on a required or suggested reading list for a Black Studies Program, but it must be. The role of radicals must be salvaged from history, and Davis' book makes its contribution to acknowledging the struggle

United States on Jan 14, 2017

Best Of All: The political autobiography was published in 1974 by Random House and reissued in 1988 and 2004.

The book is built around Davis evading police, but finally being captured in New York City and being charged with three capital offenses due to her alleged participation in an escape attempt at the Marin County Hall of Justice.

Davis then weaves her story through her 16 months in jail while awaiting trial, a world-wide campaign calling for her release and her acquittal of all charges in 1972.

It is a treasure of information from one of the most high-profile members of the revolutionary movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Davis was shaped by her travels to Cuba and concluded democracy and socialism are more compatible for freedom of the working class than democracy and capitalism.

The book does not include new material. I would be very interested in an additional chapter on when Davis and others broke from the Communist Party USA during a tumultuous meeting in Cleveland, OH, in the early 1990s.

Only the most rabid revisionist of 1960s-1970s political turmoil would not give her the place she rightfully deserves when discussing that era.

The book...

United States on Oct 02, 2006