Angela Davis

Civil rights activist Angela Davis grew up in a neighborhood in Birmingham, Ala., so riven by Klan violence that it was dubbed Dynamite Hill.

The University of California-Santa Cruz emeritus professor has authored influential books on race and gender, from “Women, Culture, and Politics” to her 2016 work “Freedom is a Constant Struggle.”

Her past associations with Marxism and the Black Panther Party have set her apart from other civil rights icons. She was fired from a teaching post at UCLA for her membership in the Communist Party, then fired again after a court ordered her reinstated.

She spent time on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for her suspected involvement in a shootout in a California courtroom in 1970, for which she was acquitted.

Davis spoke about the latest civil rights movement in a conversation with Time last month. 

“I think we’re formulating questions and addressing issues in ways that ought to have happened in the immediate aftermath of slavery,” Davis said. “We’re doing today what should have been started 150 years ago.”

— Julia Manchester