Washington Square Park
The Washington Square Arch, on the park's northern edge.
Type	municipal
Coordinates	40°43′51″N 73°59′51″W / 40.73083°N 73.9975°W / 40.73083; -73.9975Coordinates: 40°43′51″N 73°59′51″W / 40.73083°N 73.9975°W / 40.73083; -73.9975
Area	9.75 acres (39,500 m2)
Created	1871
Operated by	New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
Status	Open

Washington Square Park is one of the best-known of New York City's 1,900 public parks. At 9.75 acres (39,500 m²), it is a landmark in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity.^[1] It is operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

An open space with a tradition of nonconformity, the park's fountain area has long been one of the city's popular spots for residents and tourists. Most of the buildings surrounding the park now belong to New York University, but many have at one time served as homes and studios for artists. Some of the buildings have been built by NYU, others have been converted from their former uses into academic and residential buildings.

Location and features[link]

The Garibaldi statue.

Located at the foot of Fifth Avenue, the park is bordered by Washington Square North (Waverly Place east and west of the park), Washington Square East (University Place north of the park), Washington Square South (West 4th Street east and west of the park), and Washington Square West (MacDougal Street north and south of the park).

While the Park contains many flower beds and trees, little of the park is used for plantings due to the paving. The two prominent features are Washington's Arch and a large fountain. It includes children's play areas, trees and gardens, paths to stroll on, a chess and scrabble playing area, park benches, picnic tables, commemorative statuary and two dog runs.

Those commemorated by statues and monuments include George Washington; Italian patriot and soldier Giuseppe Garibaldi, commander of the insurrectionist forces in Italy’s struggle for unification, and one to Alexander Lyman Holley, a talented engineer who helped start the American steel industry after the invention of the Bessemer process for mass producing steel.

The New York City Police Department operates security cameras in the park.^[2] The New York University Department of Public Safety also keeps a watch on the park, and the city parks department has security officers who sometimes patrol the park. The area has a low crime rate in the "safest big city in the United States."^[3]

History[link]

[edit] Colonial era: Agricultural use and the "Land of the Blacks"

Hangman's Elm.

The land here was divided by a narrow marshy valley through which Minetta Creek (or Brook) ran.^[4] In the early 17th century, a Native American village known as Sapokanikan or "Tobacco Field" was nearby. They also owned the land known now as Washington Square Park before the Dutch attacked and drove them out. By the mid-17th century, the land on each side of the Minetta was used as farm land by the Dutch. The Dutch gave the land to slaves, thus freeing them, with the intention of using them as a human 'buffer zone' between (the attacks of) the Native Americans and the white colonial settlements. The slaves that received the land were told that, although they were no longer slaves, they had to give a portion of the profits they received from the land to the Dutch East India Company. Also, their children would be born as slave, rather than free. The tract was in the possession of African Americans from 1643 to 1664.^[5] Today, the area, then called "The Land of the Blacks," is Washington Square Park. The ex-slaves who owned "The Land of the Blacks" included Paulo D'angola. More information can be found at the exhibit "Slavery In New York" at the New-York Historical Society of Manhattan.

Early 1800s use as a burial ground[link]

It remained farmland until April 1797, when the Common Council of New York purchased the fields to the east of the Minetta (which were not yet within city limits) for a new potter's field, or public burial ground. It was used mainly for burying unknown or indigent people when they died.^[4] But when New York (which did not include this area yet) went through yellow fever epidemics in the early 19th century, most of those who died from yellow fever were also buried here, safely away from town, as a hygienic measure.^[6]

A legend in many tourist guides says that the large elm at the northwest corner of the park, Hangman's Elm, was the old hanging tree.^[6] Unfortunately for the legend, the tree was on the wrong side of the former Minetta Creek, where it stood in the back garden of a private house.^[4] Records of only one public hanging at the potter's field exist. Two eyewitness to the recorded hanging differed on the location of the gallows. One said it had been put up at a spot where the fountain is now, the other placed it closer to where the Arch is now.

The cemetery was closed in 1825. To this day, the remains of more than 20,000 bodies rest under Washington Square.^[4]

Birth of Washington Square[link]

A view of the park showing the Washington Square Arch and the central fountain

In 1826 the City bought the land west of the Minetta, the square was laid out and leveled, and it was turned into the Washington Military Parade Ground. Military parade grounds were public spaces specified by the City where volunteer militia companies responsible for the nation's defense would train.

The streets surrounding the square became one of the city's most desirable residential areas in the 1830s. The protected row of Greek Revival style houses on the north side of the park remain from that time.^[7]

In 1849 and 1850, the parade ground was reworked into the first park on the site. More paths were added and a new fence was built around it. In 1871, it came under the control of the newly-formed New York City Department of Parks, and it was re-designed again, with curving rather than straight secondary paths.^[4]

Construction of the arch[link]

Washington Square Arch

In 1889, to celebrate the centennial of George Washington's inauguration as president of the United States, a large plaster and wood Memorial Arch was erected over Fifth Avenue just north of the park. The temporary plaster and wood arch was so popular that in 1892 a permanent marble arch, designed by the New York architect Stanford White, was erected,^[8] standing 77 feet (23 m). During the excavations for the eastern leg of the arch, human remains, a coffin and a gravestone dated 1803 were uncovered 10 feet (3 m) below ground level.^[4] The inscription on the arch reads:

Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God. — Washington

White modeled the arch after the 1806 Arc de Triomphe in Paris. In 1918 two statues of George Washington were added to the north side.

The first fountain was completed in 1852. The fountain was replaced in 1872. The monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi was unveiled in 1888.^[4]

Robert Moses, Jane Jacobs, and Shirley Hayes[link]

Washington Arch, c. 1893 by Childe Hassam

Robert Moses became the Parks Commissioner in 1934. He embarked on a crusade to fully redesign the park and local activists began an opposing fight that lasted three decades.

In 1934 Robert Moses had the fountain renovated to also serve as a wading pool. In 1952 Moses finalized plans to extend 5th Avenue through the park. He intended to eventually push it through the neighborhood south of the park, as part of an urban renewal project. Area residents, including Eleanor Roosevelt, opposed the plans. The urbanist Jane Jacobs became an activist and is credited with stopping the Moses plan and closing Washington Square Park to all auto traffic. But Jacobs, in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, praised another local advocate in the fight against park traffic, Shirley Hayes: "[Hayes and the Washington Square Park Committee] advocated eliminating the existing road, that is, closing the park to all automobile traffic — but at the same time, not widening the perimeter roads either. In short, they proposed closing off a roadbed without compensating for it."^[9]

Hayes, former Chairman of the Washington Square Park Committee and member of the Greenwich Village Community Planning Board, a local resident and mother of four sons, started a public outcry for the park when large apartment buildings were raised on one of its borders. When then-Manhattan Borough president Hulan E. Jack suggested an elevated pedestrian walkway over a four-lane road through the park, Ms. Hayes initiated "Save the Square!", a seven-year battle to keep automobiles out of the quiet area. Though several different proposals were given for a roadway in the park, Hayes and her followers rejected them all. Seeking to "best serve the needs of children and adults of this family community," Hayes in turn presented her own proposal: 1.75 acres (700 m²) of roadway would be converted to parkland, a paved area would be created for emergency access only, and all other vehicles would be permanently banned from the park. This plan received widespread support, including that of then-Congressman John Lindsay as well as Washington Square Park West resident Eleanor Roosevelt. After a public hearing in 1958, a "ribbon tying" ceremony was held to mark the inception of a trial period in which the park would be free of vehicular traffic. In August 1959, the efforts of Ms. Hayes and her allies paid off: from that time forward Washington Square Park has been completely closed to traffic. A plaque commemorating her tireless crusade can be seen in the park today.

Folksingers, police attacks, and the so-called "Beatnik Riot"[link]

The central fountain, with the Philip Johnson-designed Bobst Library on the right.

Since around the end of World War II, folksingers had been congregating on warm Sunday afternoons at the fountain in the center of the park. Tension and conflicts began to develop between the bohemian element and the remaining working-class residents of the neighborhood. The city government began showing an increasing hostility to the use of public facilities by the public, and in 1947 began requiring permits before public performances could be given in any city park. In the spring of 1961 the new Parks Commissioner refused a permit to the folksingers for their Sunday afternoon gatherings, because "The folksingers have been bringing too many undesirable elements into the park." ("Undesirable" in this context meant primarily "beatniks".^[10])

On Sunday, April 9, 1961 folk music pioneer Izzy Young, owner of the Folklore Center (who had been trying to get permits for the folksingers) and about 500 musicians and supporters gathered in the park and sang songs without a permit, then held a procession from the park through the arch at Fifth Avenue, and marched to the Judson Memorial Church on the other side of the park. At about the time the musicians and friends reached the church, the New York Police Department Riot Squad was sent into the park, attacked civilians with billy clubs, and arrested ten people. The incident made the front pages of newspapers as far away as Washington D. C. The New York Mirror initially reported it as a "Beatnik Riot" but retracted the headline in the next edition. These tensions did not die down for some time.

Renovation, 2007-present[link]

Many visitors wade in the fountain.

In December 2007 the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation began construction on a US$16 million project to redesign and refurbish Washington Square Park. Changes to the park's design include the realignment of the central fountain with the arch, a replacement of the existing perimeter fence with a taller iron fence, and the flattening and shrinking of the central plaza. Controversially, the plan calls for the cutting down of dozens of mature trees and the reinstitution of ornamental water plumes in the fountain – changes opponents worry will undermine the park's current informal character.

So far, five lawsuits have been filed challenging the Parks Department's renovation plans. A 2005 suit was withdrawn by the petitioners as premature. In July 2006, New York County Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman enjoined any renovation work on the fountain or fountain plaza area, pending further review of the plans by the local community board, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the Art Commission, stating that the Parks Department misrepresented the project in order to secure its approval; but this decision was reversed on appeal.^[11] Another lawsuit challenging the Art Commission's approval of the plan was dismissed. Two more lawsuits questioning the environmental review of the renovation project were heard in 2007 by the New York County Supreme Court, then dismissed. On the first night of construction the Open Washington Square Park Coalition, a community group opposing the construction, held a candlelight vigil by the arch. Community members continue to criticize the movement of the fountain, as it is still not directly aligned with 5th avenue.

Upon the completion of phase one of the park's renovation on May 22, 2009, the Coalition for a Better Washington Square Park, a private organization, began raising money to "hire off-duty cops and maintenance workers to patrol the Park" by the summer of 2010.^[12]

On June 2, 2011, the eastern half of the park was reopened to the public, leaving only the park's southwest corner under construction.

The park in popular culture and local politics[link]

Washington Square has long been a hub for politics and culture in New York City.

In 1834 New York University decided to use prison labor to dress the stone for its new building, across from the park. Prison labor from Sing Sing was cheaper than hiring local stonemasons. This, the stonecutters of the city said, was taking the bread out of their mouths. They held a not-very-peaceful rally in Washington Square Park, and then held the first labor march in the city. That turned into a riot, and the Twenty-seventh Regiment was called out to quell the stonecutters. The regiment camped in Washington Square for four days and nights until the excitement subsided. New York University continued their use of prison labor.^[13]

In 1888, Robert Louis Stevenson, in the U.S. seeking medical help for his battle with consumption, shared a seat in the Park with Mark Twain, enjoying conversation.

A street entertainer in Washington Square Park

In 1912, approximately 20,000 workers (including 5,000 women) marched to the park to commemorate the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which had killed 146 workers the year before. Many of the women wore fitted tucked-front blouses like those manufactured by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. This clothing style became the working woman's uniform and a symbol of female independence, reflecting the alliance of labor and suffrage movements. Over 25,000 people marched on the park demanding women's suffrage in 1915.

In 1934, Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, became sober while attending Oxford Group Meetings approximately one mile from Washington Square Park (246 East 23rd Street). In his famous Big Book, Wilson refers repeatedly to a triumphal arch matching the Washington Square Arch in every detail.

In the years before and after World War I the park was a center for many American artists, writers, and activists, including the photographer André Kertész, who photographed the square during winter. Later the park was a gathering area for the Beat generation, folk, and Hippie movements in the 1950s and 1960s; in 1958 musician Buddy Holly, a nearby resident of the Village, spent time in the park both listening to people play and helping guitarists with musical chords.^[14]

The park was featured extensively in the 2007 film I Am Legend. It was home to the protagonist, Robert Neville played by Will Smith. It was used as a major action piece, especially in the last scenes of the film. Filming involved the closure of the park to make room for numerous explosions and filming equipment.

Chess players in the southwest corner of the park.

Built-in outdoor chess tables on the southwest corner encourage outdoor playing along with throngs of watchers (in his youth, Stanley Kubrick was a frequent player). These tables were featured in the films Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993) and Fresh (1994). The Washington Square tables form the cornerstone of what is called Manhattan's "chess district," as the area around the park (Thompson Street, between West 3rd Street and Bleecker Street) has a number of chess shops, the oldest being the Village Chess Shop (founded in 1972), in addition to the playing location in the park. In addition, the park's Scrabble players were featured in the 2004 documentary film Word Wars.

On September 27, 2007, Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama held a rally at Washington Square. 20,000 people registered for the event, and the crowds overflowed past security gates set up as a cordon. The New York Times described the rally "as one of the largest campaign events of the year."^[15]

See also[link]

• Washington Park (disambiguation)
• Washington Square (disambiguation)

References[link]

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/08/wall-street-protest-moves-to-washington-sq/

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Washington Square Park

• Information about Washington Square Park at the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation website
• Washington Arch Records,1872-1925 New-York Historical Society
• Movies that filmed at Washington Square Park, MoviePlaces.tv
• "Balladeers & Billy Clubs" from Rogue, August 1961
• Washington Square Arch: A Triumph (2001)
• Preserve Washington Square Park (website celebrating the park and opposing the redesign)
• Open Washington Square Park (community coalition opposing the redesign)
• Washington Square Park Phase 1A Archeological Assessment
• Video of Washington Square Park

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Washington Square may refer to:

Places

• Washington Square (Boston), Massachusetts
• Washington Square (MBTA station), Brookline, Massachusetts
• Washington Square Park (Chicago), Illinois
• Washington Square (Charleston), South Carolina
• Washington Square Park, Greenwich Village, New York City
• Washington Square (Philadelphia), Pennsylvania
• Washington Square West, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Washington Square (Newport, Rhode Island)
• Washington Square (Salt Lake City), Utah
• Washington Square (San Francisco), California
• Washington Square, Syracuse, New York
• Washington Square (Bangkok), Thailand

Buildings

• Washington Square (Detroit), Michigan
• Washington Square Village, New York City
• Washington Square (Bellevue, Washington)

Shopping centres

• Washington Square (Oregon), Tigard, Oregon
• Washington Square Mall (Evansville, Indiana)
• Washington Square Mall (Indianapolis, Indiana)

Arts

• Washington Square (novel), by Henry James
• Washington Square (1997 film), adaptation by Carol Doyle
• "Washington Square" (The Village Stompers song)
• "Washington Square" (Counting Crows song)
• Washington Squares, American music group of the 1980s

Other

• Washington Square News, New York University newspaper

See also[link]

• Washington Square Historic District (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Angela Davis
Davis in October 2006
Born	Angela Yvonne Davis (1944-01-26) January 26, 1944 (age 68) Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.
Ethnicity	African-American
Citizenship	United States
Alma mater	Brandeis University, B.A., (1965) University of California, San Diego, M.A. Humboldt University, Ph.D., Philosophy
Occupation	Activist, educator, author
Employer	University of California, Santa Cruz (retired)
Influenced by	Herbert Marcuse
Political party	Communist Party USA (1969-1991), Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (1991-currently)
Spouse	Hilton Braithwaite div.[1]
Relatives	Ben Davis, brother

Angela Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis emerged as a nationally prominent activist and radical in the 1960s, as a leader of the Communist Party USA and Black Panther Party, and through her association with the Civil Rights Movement. Prisoner rights have been among her continuing interests; she is the founder of "Critical Resistance", an organization working to abolish the prison-industrial complex. She is a retired professor with the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz and is the former director of the university's Feminist Studies department.^[2] Her research interests are in feminism, African American studies, critical theory, Marxism, popular music and social consciousness, and the philosophy and history of punishment and prisons.^[3]

Her membership in the Communist Party led to Ronald Reagan's request in 1969 to have her barred from teaching at any university in the State of California. She was tried and acquitted of suspected involvement in the Soledad brothers' August 1970 abduction and murder of Judge Harold Haley in Marin County, California.

She was twice a candidate for Vice President on the Communist Party USA ticket during the 1980s.

Early life[link]

Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama. Her father, Frank Davis, was a graduate of St. Augustine's College, a historically black college in Raleigh, North Carolina, and was briefly a high school history teacher. Her father later owned and operated a service station in the black section of Birmingham. Her mother, Sallye Davis, a graduate of Miles College in Birmingham, was an elementary school teacher.

The family lived in the "Dynamite Hill" neighborhood, which was marked by racial conflict. Davis was occasionally able to spend time on her uncle's farm and with friends in New York City.^[4] Her brother, Ben Davis, played defensive back for the Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Davis also has another brother, Reginald Davis, and sister, Fania Davis Jordan.^[5]

Davis attended Carrie A. Tuggle School, a black elementary school; later she attended Parker Annex, a middle-school branch of Parker High School in Birmingham. During this time Davis’ mother was a national officer and leading organizer of the Southern Negro Congress, an organization heavily influenced by the Communist Party. Consequently Davis grew up surrounded by communist organizers and thinkers who significantly influenced her intellectual development growing up.^[6] By her junior year, she had applied to and was accepted at an American Friends Service Committee program that placed black students from the South in integrated schools in the North. She chose Elisabeth Irwin High School in Greenwich Village in New York City. There she was introduced to socialism and communism and was recruited by a Communist youth group, Advance. She also met children of some of the leaders of the Communist Party USA, including her lifelong friend, Bettina Aptheker.^[7]

Education[link]

Brandeis University[link]

Davis was awarded a scholarship to Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, where she was one of three black students in her freshman class. She initially felt alienated by the isolation of the campus (at that time she was interested in Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre), but she soon made friends with foreign students. She encountered the Frankfurt School philosopher Herbert Marcuse at a rally during the Cuban Missile Crisis and then became his student. In a television interview, she said "Herbert Marcuse taught me that it was possible to be an academic, an activist, a scholar, and a revolutionary."^[8] She worked part time to earn enough money to travel to France and Switzerland before she went on to attend the eighth World Festival of Youth and Students in Helsinki, Finland. She returned home in 1963 to a Federal Bureau of Investigation interview about her attendance at the Communist-sponsored festival.^[9]

During her second year at Brandeis, she decided to major in French and continued her intensive study of Sartre. Davis was accepted by the Hamilton College Junior Year in France Program and, she wrote in her autobiography, she managed to talk Brandeis into extending financial support via her scholarship. Classes were initially at Biarritz and later at the Sorbonne. In Paris, she and other students lived with a French family. It was at Biarritz that she received news of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, committed by the members of the Ku Klux Klan, an occasion that deeply affected her, because, she wrote, she was personally acquainted with the young victims.^[9]

Nearing completion of her degree in French, Davis realized her major interest was in philosophy. She became particularly interested in the ideas of Herbert Marcuse and on her return to Brandeis she sat in on his course. Marcuse, she wrote, turned out to be approachable and helpful. Davis began making plans to attend the University of Frankfurt for graduate work in philosophy. In 1965 she graduated magna cum laude, a member of Phi Beta Kappa.^[9]

University of Frankfurt[link]

In Germany, with a stipend of just $100 a month, she first lived with a German family. Later, she moved with a group of students into a loft in an old factory. After visiting East Berlin during the annual May Day celebration, she felt that the East German government was dealing better with the residual effects of fascism than were the West Germans. Many of her roommates were active in the radical Socialist German Student Union (SDS), and Davis participated in SDS actions, but events unfolding in the United States — the formation of the Black Panther Party and transformation of SNCC, for example — impelled her to return to the US.^[9]

Postgraduate work[link]

This section requires expansion.

Marcuse, in the meantime, had moved to the University of California, San Diego, and Davis followed him there after her two years in Frankfurt.^[9]

Returning to the United States, Davis stopped in London to attend a conference on "The Dialectics of Liberation." The black contingent at the conference included the American Stokely Carmichael and the British Michael X. Although moved by Carmichael's fiery rhetoric, she was disappointed by her colleagues' black nationalist sentiments and their rejection of communism as a "white man's thing." She held the view that any nationalism was a barrier to grappling with the underlying issue, capitalist domination of working people of all races.^[10]

Davis earned her master's degree from the San Diego campus and her doctorate in philosophy from Humboldt University in East Berlin.^[11]

University of California, Los Angeles[link]

Davis was an acting assistant professor in the philosophy department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), beginning in 1969. She had been pursued with positions at Princeton and Swarthmore but chose UCLA for its urban location. ^[12]At that time, she also was known as a radical feminist and activist, a member of the Communist Party USA and an associate of the Black Panther Party.^[2]

The Board of Regents of the University of California, urged by then-California Governor Ronald Reagan, fired her from her $10,000 a year post in 1969 because of her membership in the Communist Party. Black students and several professors, however, claimed that they fired her because of her race. The Board of Regents was censured by the American Association of University Professors for their failure to reappoint Davis after her teaching contract expired.^[13] On October 20 when California judge, Perry Pacht, ruled that the Regents could not fire Davis because of her affiliation with the Communist Party, Davis resumed her post at the University. The Regents, unhappy with the decision, continued to search for ways to release Davis from her position at UCLA. They finally accomplished this on June 20, 1970 when they fired Davis on account of the “inflammatory language” she had used on four different speeches. “We deem particularly offensive,” the report said, “such utterances as her statement that the regents ‘killed, brutalized (and) murdered’ the People’s Park demonstrators, and her repeated characterizations of the police as ‘pigs.’” ^[14][15][16]

Arrest and trial[link]

On August 7, 1970 Jonathan Jackson, a heavily armed, 17-year-old African American high school student, gained control over a courtroom in Marin County, California. Once in the courtroom, Jackson armed the black defendants and took Judge Harold Haley, the prosecutor, and three female jurors as hostages.^[17][18] As Jackson transported the hostages and two black convicts away from the courtroom, the police began shooting at the vehicle. The judge, one of the jurors, the prosecutor, and the three black men were killed in the melee. Davis had purchased the firearms used in the attack, including the shotgun used to kill Haley, which had been purchased two days prior and sawed off.^[18] She had also written numerous letters found in the prison cell of one of the murderers. Since California considers “all persons concerned in the commission of a crime, whether they directly commit the act constituting the offense… principals in any crime so committed,” San Marin County Superior Judge Peter Allen Smith charged Davis with “aggravated kidnapping and first degree murder in the death of Judge Harold Haley” and issued a warrant for her arrest. Hours after the judge issued the warrant on August 14, 1970 a massive attempt to arrest Angela Davis began. On August 18, 1970, four days after the initial warrant was issued, the FBI director J. Edgar Hoover made Angela Davis the third woman and the 309th person to appear on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List.^[17][19]

Soon after, Davis became a fugitive and fled California. According to her autobiography, during this time she hid in friends’ homes and moved from place to place at night. On October 13, 1970, FBI agents found her at the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge in New York City.^[20] President Richard M. Nixon congratulated the FBI on its “capture of the dangerous terrorist, Angela Davis." On January 5, 1971, after several months in jail, Angela Davis appeared at the Marin County Superior Court and declared her innocence before the court and nation: "I now declare publicly before the court, before the people of this country that I am innocent of all charges which have been leveled against me by the state of California." John Abt, general counsel of the Communist Party USA, was one of the first attorneys to represent Davis for her alleged involvement in the shootings.^[21] While being held in the Women's Detention Center there, she was initially segregated from the general population, but with the help of her legal team soon obtained a federal court order to get out of the segregated area.^[22]

Angela Davis and Erich Honecker in GDR, 1972

Across the nation, the thousands of people who agreed with her declaration began organizing a liberation movement. In New York City, black writers formed a committee called the Black People in Defense of Angela Davis. By February 1971 more than 200 local committees in the United States, and 67 in foreign countries worked to liberate Angela Davis from prison. Thanks, in part, to this support, in 1972 the state released her from prison.^[17] After spending 18 months behind bars, Davis was acquitted of all charges by an all-white jury.

On February 23, 1972, Rodger McAfee, a dairy farmer from Caruthers, California with the help of Steve Sparacino, a wealthy business owner, paid her $100,000 bail. Portions of her legal defense expenses were paid for by the Presbyterian Church (UPCNA).^[17][23]

In 1972, she was tried and the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. The fact that she owned the guns used in the crime was judged not sufficient to establish her responsibility for the plot. Her experience as a prisoner in the US played a key role in convincing her to fight against the “prison industrial complex” that she claims exists in the US.^[17] John Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded their song "Angela" on their 1972 album Some Time in New York City in support. The Jazz musician Todd Cochran, also known as Bayete, recorded his song "Free Angela (Thoughts...and all I've got to say)" that same year. The Rolling Stones recorded the song "Sweet Black Angel" on their 1972 album Exile on Main Street.^[24][25]

In Cuba[link]

After her release, Davis visited Cuba following her fellow activists Huey Newton, Stokely Carmichael, and Assata Shakur. Her reception by Afro-Cubans at a mass rally was so enthusiastic that she was reportedly barely able to speak.^[26]

During this visit she also became convinced that “only under socialism could the fight against racism be successfully executed.” During her stay in Cuba, Davis witnessed what she perceived to be a racism-free country which led her to believe that blacks could only achieve racial equality in a socialist society. When she returned to the United States, her socialist leanings increasingly influenced the ways she looked at race struggles within the US.^[27]

Criticism by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn[link]

In a New York City speech on July 9, 1975, Russian dissident and Nobel Laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn told an AFL-CIO meeting that Davis was derelict in supporting prisoners in various socialist countries around the world, given her stark opposition to the U.S. prison system. In particular, Solzhenitsyn claimed that a group of Czech prisoners appealed to Davis for support, which he said she refused to offer. ^[28]

Specifically Solzhenitsyn stated, "Little children in school were told to sign petitions in defense of Angela Davis. Although she didn’t have too difficult a time in this country’s jails, she came to recuperate in Soviet resorts. Some Soviet dissidents–but more important, a group of Czech dissidents–addressed an appeal to her: `Comrade Davis, you were in prison. You know how unpleasant it is to sit in prison, especially when you consider yourself innocent. You have such great authority now. Could you help our Czech prisoners? Could you stand up for those people in Czechoslovakia who are being persecuted by the state?’ Angela Davis answered: `They deserve what they get. Let them remain in prison.’ That is the face of Communism. That is the heart of Communism for you.” ^[29]

In a speech at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, Davis denied Solzhenitsyn's claim.^[30]

Activism[link]

In 1980 and 1984, Angela Davis ran for Vice-President along with the veteran party leader of the Communist Party, Gus Hall. However, given that the Communist Party lacked support within the US, Davis urged radicals to amass support for the Democratic Party. Revolutionaries must be realists, said Davis in a telephone interview from San Francisco where she was campaigning. During both of the campaigns she was Professor of Ethnic Studies at the San Francisco State University. ^[31] In 1979 she was also awarded with the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union for her civil rights activism. She visited Moscow in July of that year to collect the prize.

Angela Davis as honorary guest of the World Festival of Youth and Students in 1973

Davis has continued a career of activism, and has written several books. A principal focus of her current activism is the state of prisons within the United States. She considers herself an abolitionist, not a "prison reformer," and has referred to the United States prison system as the "prison-industrial complex".^[32] Davis suggested focusing social efforts on education and building "engaged communities" to solve various social problems now handled through state punishment.^[2] Davis was one of the primary founders of Critical Resistance, a national grassroots organization dedicated to building a movement to abolish the prison system.

In recent work, Angela Davis argues that the prison system in the United States more closely resembles a new form of slavery than a criminal justice system. According to Davis, between the late 19th century and the mid-20th century the number of prisons in the US sharply increased while crime rates continued to rise. During this time, the African American population also became disproportionally represented in prisons. "What is effective or just about this "justice" system?" she urged people to question.^[33] To encourage people to critically think about the criminal justice system and its racist history, Davis has also spent years lecturing in schools, parks, and other public places to the American public.

She has lectured at San Francisco State University, Stanford University, Bryn Mawr College, Brown University, Syracuse University, and other schools.^[2] She states that in her teaching, which is mostly at the graduate level, she concentrates more on posing questions that encourage development of critical thinking than on imparting knowledge.^[2] In 1997, she declared herself to be a lesbian in Out magazine.^[34]

As early as 1969 Davis began publicly speaking, voicing her opposition to the Vietnam War, racism, sexism, and the prison industrial complex, and her support of gay rights and other social justice movements. In 1969 she blamed imperialism for the troubles suffered by oppressed populations. “We are facing a common enemy and that enemy is Yankee Imperialism, which is killing us both here and abroad. Now I think anyone who would try to separate those struggles, anyone who would say that in order to consolidate an anti-war movement, we have to leave all of these other outlying issues out of the picture, is playing right into the hands of the enemy,” Davis declared.^[35] In 2001 she publicly spoke against the war on terror, the prison industrial complex, and the broken immigration system and told people that if they wanted to solve social justice issues they had to “hone their critical skills, develop them and implement them." Later, after the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, she declared, the “horrendous situation in New Orleans,” is due to the structures of racism, capitalism, and imperialism with which our leaders run this country.^[36]

Davis spoke out against the 1995 Million Man March, arguing that the exclusion of women from this event necessarily promoted male chauvinism and that the organizers, including Louis Farrakhan, preferred women to take subordinate roles in society. Together with Kimberlé Crenshaw and others, she formed the African American Agenda 2000, an alliance of Black feminists.^[37]

Davis is no longer a member of the Communist Party, leaving it to help found the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, which broke from the Communist Party USA because of the latter's support of the Soviet coup attempt of 1991.^[38] She remains on the Advisory Board of the Committees.^[39]

Davis at the University of Alberta, March 28, 2006.

Davis has continued to speak out against the death penalty. In 2003, Davis lectured at Agnes Scott College, a liberal arts women's college in Atlanta, on prison reform, minority issues, and the ills of the criminal justice system.^[40]

This biographical article is written like a résumé. Please help improve it by revising it to be neutral and encyclopedic. (April 2012)

}At the University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz), she participated in a 2004 panel concerning Kevin Cooper. She also spoke in defense of Stanley "Tookie" Williams on another panel in 2005,^[41] and 2009.^[42]

As of February 2007, Davis was teaching in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz.^[43]

In addition to being the commencement speaker at Grinnell College in 2007, in October of that year, Davis was the keynote speaker at the fifth annual Practical Activism Conference at UC Santa Cruz.^[44]

On February 8, 2008, Davis spoke on the campus of Howard University at the invitation of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity. On February 24, 2008, she was featured as the closing keynote speaker for the 2008 Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally College Conference. On April 14, 2008, she spoke at the College of Charleston as a guest of the Women's and Gender Studies Program. On January 23, 2009, she was the keynote speaker at the Martin Luther King Commemorative Celebration on the campus of Louisiana State University.^[45]

On April 16, 2009, she was the keynote speaker at the University of Virginia Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies symposium on The Problem of Punishment: Race, Inequity, and Justice.^[46] On January 20, 2010, Davis was the keynote speaker in San Antonio, Texas, at Trinity University's MLK Day Celebration held in Laurie Auditorium. On January 21, 2011, Davis was the keynote speaker in Salem, OR at Willamette University's MLK Week Celebration held in Smith Auditorium where she declared that her biggest goal for the coming years is to shut down prisons. During her remarks, she also noted that while she supports some of President Barack Obama's positions, she feels he is too conservative. On January 27, 2011, Davis was the Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration speaker at Georgia Southern University's Performing Arts Center (PAC) in Statesboro, Georgia. On June 10, 2011, Davis delivered the Graduation Address at the Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington.^[47] On May 12, 2012, Davis delivered a Commencement Address at Pitzer College, in Claremont.

As of 31 October 2011, Davis had spoken at the Philadelphia and Washington Square Occupy Wall Street assemblies where, due to restrictions on electronic amplification, her words were human microphoned.^[48][49]

Teaching[link]

Davis was a professor in the History of Consciousness and the Feminist Studies Departments at the University of California, Santa Cruz from 1991 to 2008^[50] and is now Distinguished Professor Emerita^[51].

Davis was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Syracuse University in Spring 1992^[52] and October 2010.^[53] She was hosted by the Women's and Gender Studies Department and the Department of African American studies.

Bibliography[link]

• Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire, Seven Stories Press (October 1, 2005), ISBN 1-58322-695-8.
• Are Prisons Obsolete?, Open Media, (April 2003), ISBN 1-58322-581-1
• Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday, Vintage Books, (January 26, 1999), ISBN 0-679-77126-3
• Women, Culture & Politics, Vintage, (February 19, 1990), ISBN 0-679-72487-7.
• The Angela Y. Davis Reader, (Joy James, Ed.), Wiley-Blackwell (December 11, 1998), ISBN 0-631-20361-3.
• Women, Race, & Class, (February 12, 1983)
• Angela Davis: An Autobiography, Random House, (September 1974), ISBN 0-394-48978-0
• If They Come in the Morning: voices of Resistance (New York: Third Press, 1971)
• 1970's-Joan Little: The Dialectics of Rape(New York: Lang Communications, 1975)
• The Meaning of Freedom (City Lights, 2012)

Angela Davis interviews and appearances in audiovisual materials[link]

• 1971
  • Davis, Angela Y. An Interview with Angela Davis. Cassette. Radio Free People, New York, 1971.
  • Myerson, M. "Angela Davis in Prison." Ramparts Magazine March 1971: 20-21.
  • Seigner, Art. Angela Davis: Soul and Soledad. Phonodisc. Flying Dutchman, New York, 1971.
  • Interview with Angela Davis in San Francisco on June 1970
  • Walker, Joe. Angela Davis Speaks. Phonodisc. Folkways Records, New York, 1971.
• 1972
  • "Angela Davis Talks about her Future and her Freedom." Jet July 27, 1972: 54- 57.
• 1977
  • Davis, Angela Y. I am a Black Revolutionary Woman (1971). Phonodisc. Folkways, New York, 1977.
  • Phillips, Esther. Angela Davis Interviews Esther Phillips. Cassette. Pacifica Tape Library, Los Angeles, 1977.
• 1985
  • Cudjoe, Selwyn. In Conversation with Angela Davis. Videocassette. ETV Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, 1985. 21 minute interview with Angela Davis.
• 1992
  • Davis, Angela Y. "Women on the Move: Travel Themes in Ma Rainey's Blues" in Borders/diasporas. Sound Recording. University of California, Santa Cruz: Center for Cultural Studies, Santa Cruz, 1992.
• 2000
  • Davis, Angela Y. The Prison Industrial Complex and its Impact on Communities of Color. Videocassette. University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI, 2000.
• 2001
  • Barsamian, D. "Angela Davis: African American Activist on Prison-Industrial Complex." Progressive 65.2 (2001): 33-38.
• 2002
  • September 11 America: an Interview with Angela Davis." Policing the National Body: Sex, Race, and Criminalization”. Cambridge, Ma.: South End Press, 2002.

Archives[link]

1. The National United Committee to Free Angela Davis is at the Main Library at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California (A collection of thousands of letters received by the Committee and Davis from people in the US and other countries.)
2. The complete transcript of her trial, including all appeals and legal memorandum, have been preserved in the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Library in Berkeley, California.

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	African American portal
	Communism portal

• List of African American philosophers

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Angela Davis

• Angela Davis at the Internet Movie Database
• Angela Davis at AllRovi
• Film clip, Davis speaking at Florida A&M University’s Black History Month convocation, 1979
• Davis quotations gathered by Black History Daily
• A PBS interview
• Round table discussion on "Resisting the Prison Industrial Complex, with Davis as a guest
• New York Times archive of Davis-related articles
• Time chat-room users interview with Davis on "Attacking the 'Prison Industrial Complex." 1998
• Harvard Gazette article, March 13, 2003
• Davis timeline at UCLA
• Audio recording of Davis at a Practical Activism Conference in Santa Cruz in 2007
• Guardian interview with Davis, November 8, 2007
• Davis entry in the Encyclopedia of Alabama
• Angela Davis on the 40th Anniversary of Her Arrest and President Obama’s First Two Years - video interview by Democracy Now!
• Angela Davis Biography, The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs, and Germany
• In Depth interview with Davis, October 3, 2004

Joe Jonas
Joe Jonas in March 2012.
Background information
Birth name	Joseph Adam Jonas
Born	(1989-08-15) August 15, 1989 (age 22) Casa Grande, Arizona, U.S.
Origin	Wyckoff, New Jersey, U.S.
Genres	Teen pop, pop rock, Christian rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician, actor, dancer
Instruments	Vocals, percussion, keyboards, guitars
Years active	2005–present
Labels	Columbia (2005 -2007) Hollywood (2007 - 2012) [1] Jonas (2009 - present)
Associated acts	Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato, Taylor Swift
Website	joejonasmusic.com

Joseph Adam "Joe" Jonas (born August 15, 1989) is an American pop singer, musician, actor, and dancer. He is a member of the Jonas Brothers, a pop-rock band made up of him and his two brothers, Nick and Kevin. He starred as Joseph Lucas on the Disney Channel original series Jonas, and released his debut solo studio album, Fastlife in October 2011.

Early life[link]

Joseph Adam Jonas was born in Casa Grande, Arizona.^[2] His mother, Denise (née Miller), is a former sign language teacher and singer, and his father, Paul Kevin Jonas, Sr., is a songwriter, musician and former ordained minister at an Assemblies of God church.^[3][4][5][6] Joe is of Italian (from a great-grandfather), German, Irish, English, Cherokee, and French-Canadian descent.^[7][8]

Acting career[link]

[edit] 2007-08: Hannah Montana and Camp Rock

On August 17, 2007, Jonas, along with his brothers, guest starred in an episode of Hannah Montana. The episode debuted alongside the television film High School Musical 2 and a sneak peek of the new Disney Channel show Phineas and Ferb.^[9] The episode broke basic cable records with a record 10.7 million viewers, and became basic cable's most watched series telecast ever.^[10]

Jonas and his brothers filmed a Disney Channel Original Movie called Camp Rock, where they play a band called "Connect Three." Joe plays the lead male role and lead singer "Shane Gray"; Nick plays the role of "Nate", a guitarist and drummer; and Kevin plays the role of "Jason," also a guitarist. The film's soundtrack was released on June 17, 2008. The movie premiered on June 20, 2008 in the USA on Disney Channel, and in Canada on Family. Jonas reprised his role of Shane in the sequel, Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam. The film premiered on September 3, 2010 and the soundtrack was released on August 10, 2010.

The reality short series, Jonas Brothers: Living the Dream, premiered on Disney Channel on May 16, 2008. The first season, which ran until September 5, 2008, documented the brothers' lives on the Look Me In The Eyes Tour. The name was inspired by the band's hit song "When You Look Me in the Eyes". The series was renewed for a second season, which premiered on March 21, 2010.^[11] The second season followed the band on the European leg of their World Tour 2009.

[edit] 2009-present: JONAS

Jonas, along with his three brothers Kevin, Nick and Frankie, also starred in their own Disney Channel Original Series, called JONAS. In the series, the Jonas Brothers portray a pop band attempting to live a normal life. The first season premiered on May 2, 2009. Filming for the second season began in February 2010.

Jonas guest judged on an episode of American Idol during the auditions in Dallas.^[12] In February 2010, Jonas made a cameo appearance in Vampire Weekend's music video for "Giving Up the Gun" along with Jake Gyllenhaal, Lil Jon, and RZA.^[13]

Jonas guest starred in 2010 on TV Land’s Hot In Cleveland series, which co-stars Betty White.^[14] Jonas appeared in an August episode as 'Will', Valerie Bertinelli's character's son, in an episode. In the episode, Will Moretti comes to Cleveland to visit his mother Melanie. The episode aired August 11 and was taped in front of a live studio audience July 17.^[15] He reprised his role on the show on January 25, 2012.^[16]

Starting on August 19, 2012, the eldest Jonas brother will appear in an E! reality series^[17] alongside his wife Danielle and brothers Nick and Joe. Produced by Ryan Seacrest, "Married to Jonas" will document the young couple's domestic life as well as the brothers' recording efforts as they prepare to release their newest group album.^[18][19][20]

Music career[link]

Jonas Brothers[link]

In early 2005, Columbia Records' new president, Steve Greenberg, listened to Nick's record. While Greenberg did not like the album, he did like Nick's voice.^[21] After hearing the song, "Please Be Mine", written and performed by all the brothers, Daylight/Columbia Records decided to sign the three as a group act.^[22] After being signed to Columbia, the brothers considered naming their group "Sons of Jonas" before settling on the name "Jonas Brothers".^[23]

It's About Time, the brothers' first album, was released on August 8, 2006.^[24] According to the band's manager, it was only a "limited release" of a little over 50,000 copies. Because Sony was not interested in further promoting the band, the Jonas Brothers then considered switching labels. The band was ultimately dropped by Columbia Records in early 2007.

After shortly being without a label, the Jonas Brothers signed with Hollywood Records in February 2007.^[25][26] Around the same time, the brothers began appearing in GAP commercials for Baby Bottle Pops, singing the jingle.^[26] Their self-titled second album, Jonas Brothers, was released on August 7, 2007.^[27] It reached number five on the Billboard Hot 200 chart in its first week.

The Jonas Brothers' third studio album, A Little Bit Longer, was released in the United States on August 12, 2008 and peaked at #1 on the Billboard 200.^[28]

On June 16, 2009, The Jonas Brothers' fourth studio album, and third release under Hollywood Records entitled Lines, Vines, and Trying Times was released. The album peaked at number 1 on the Billboard 200 with 247,000 copies sold.

It was announced on May 2, 2012, that the Jonas Brothers part ways with their record label Hollywood Records; they bought the rights of their music.^[1][29]

Solo artist[link]

It was announced on May 19, 2010, that Jonas was planning on releasing a solo album.^[30] On May 16, 2011, Jonas announced the first single will be called "See No More" and will be released on June 3.^[31] On August 4, 2011, Jonas announced via Twitter that he will join Britney Spears on her European tour starting October 16, 2011.^[32][33] On September 9, 2011, his second single "Just in Love" premiered on RyanSeacrest.com.^[34] The music video for the song that was shot in Paris, premiered on E! Online on September 12, 2011.^[35] In support of the album, Joe co-headlined with Jay Sean in the Joe Jonas & Jay Sean Tour with JoJo as the opening act.^[36] The tour kicked off on September 9, 2011 and goes on until October 6, 2011.^[37]

Fastlife released on October 11, 2011 and debuted on Billboard 200 charts at No. 15 off 18,000 sales start.^[38] As of December 29, 2011, the album has shifted 25,000 copies.^[39]

It was announced on May 2, 2012, that Joe Jonas had parted ways with Hollywood Records; he bought the rights of his music.^[1][40]

Personal life[link]

Jonas dated singer Taylor Swift from July to October 2008.^[41][42] Jonas ended the relationship by phone after meeting actress Camilla Belle.^[43][44] Swift's songs Forever and Always, Last Kiss and Better than Revenge are believed to have been inspired by her relationship with Jonas.^[45] Jonas dated actress Camilla Belle, who starred in the band's music video for the song "Lovebug", from October 2008 to July 2009.^[46][47] Jonas was in a relationship with actress Ashley Greene until March 2011.^[48]

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Singles[link]