Biography
Angela Davis was a philosophy teacher and Communist activist who helped organize the defense of the Soledad Brothers, three Black prisoners charged with killing a guard. In August 1970, prosecutors charged her with murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy after guns she had purchased were used in a hostage-taking at the Marin County courthouse. The FBI put her on its Ten Most Wanted list and arrested her in New York on October 13. She was extradited to California and held in pretrial detention while supporters organized an international campaign for her release. A jury acquitted her on all charges in 1972. She went on to organize against mass incarceration and advocate for prison abolition.
Davis was transferred from Marin County Jail to a basement cell in Palo Alto on December 2, 1971 for the Santa Clara County proceedings. Her attorneys described cramped conditions, restricted exercise and difficulty conferring privately. In a December 18 message to supporters, Davis said that she had been taken to the Milpitas jail for exercise and appealed for books for its women prisoners. These were transfers during the existing pretrial custody period.
Original document 1248, PDF page 5; Original document 1248, PDF page 6; Original document 1248, PDF page 14.
The May 17, 2019 addendum credits the mothers Inez Williams, Doris Maxwell and Georgia Jackson with initiating defense contacts and public campaigning, and describes how Davis learned of the case through Kendra Alexandra and the Che-Lumumba Club before organizing the Southern California defense committee. This is retrospective organizing context, not a new personal prosecution or custody endpoint.
Soledad Brothers (1970), with Homage to the Soledad Mothers addendum (May 17, 2019), PDF page 2.
The Magee report distinguishes Davis’s completed acquittal in the previous year on conspiracy, kidnapping and murder charges from Magee’s current deadlocked trial. Her alleged role concerned supplying weapons, not physical presence as a courthouse inmate. It supplies no new custody interval or actual discharge day.
Washington Area Spark, Vol. 2 No. 9, April 13–May 11, 1973, PDF page 11.
Connie Matthews’s interview with Davis documents the Regents’ September 19, 1969 dismissal vote over Communist Party membership and the October 3 vote denying course credit for her class. Davis discusses her summer visit to Cuba with Kendra Alexander and international solidarity. This is political and academic context before her later criminal prosecution.
