American activist and writer Angela Davis was BOTD in 1944. Born in Alabama, she studied at Brandels University and later in Germany, where she became engaged in Marxist politics. Returning to the United States, she joined the Communist Party and became a prominent activist in feminist, Black Power and anti-Vietnam movements. In 1969, she was fired from a teaching position at the University of California for her Communist sympathies. After a court ruled the firing illegal, she was fired again for using inflammatory language. In 1970, guns belonging to Davis were used in an armed assault on a courtroom in California, in which four people were killed. Charged with conspiracy to murder, a warrant was issued for her arrest. Davis fled California, and was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List. Four days later she was captured and arrested, declaring her innocence, and was incarcerated without trial for 16 months. She became the poster girl for the Radical Left, inspiring a national campaign to pay her legal fees. Finally brought to trial in 1972, she was acquitted on all charges. Following her release, she went on an international speaking tour, travelling to Cuba, Russia and East Germany, where she was hailed as a Communist hero. She returned to academia, remaining involved in activism, particularly for the abolition of police and prisons, Black liberation and Palestinian solidarity. Married briefly during the 1980s, she came out as a lesbian in 1997. She currently teaches at the University of California, and is in a relationship with academic Gina Dent. She released an autobiography in 1974, edited by Toni Morrison, and has published extensively on feminist and civil rights issues.