The exhibit, titled, “Angela Davis – Seize The Time,” is on view at the museum’s Great Hall.
It focuses on Davis’ early activism, arrest, incarceration and the dual national and international campaigns mounted to free her.
In 1970, Davis, then a professor at UCLA was implicated in the August courtroom shootout in Marin Countythat left a judge Harold Haley and three others dead, as well as the prosecutor and a juror injured. It was determined that Davis had purchased several of the guns used in the shooting.
Davis, who had been in correspondence with the defendants, was charged with aggravated assault and first degree murder in Haley’s death. She fled after a warrant was issued and was listed on the FBI’s most wanted list. She was arrested in New York in October 1970.
She was acquitted by an all-white jury in Santa Clara in June 1972. Davis has since continued her career in academia and activism.
The exhibit features historical sketches, art work, literature and manuscripts and is on loan from the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University.
