Angela Yvonne Davis (born, January 26, 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American socialist organizer and professor who was associated with the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Davis was also a prominent member and political candidate of the Communist Party USA. She first achieved nationwide notoriety when she was linked to the murder of Judge Harold Haley during an attempted Black Panther prison break; she fled underground, and was the subject of an intense manhunt. She was eventually captured, arrested, tried, and then acquitted in one of the most famous trials in recent U.S. history. She is currently Professor of History of Consciousness at the University of California and Presidential Chair at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She works for racial and gender equality and for prison abolition, and is a popular public speaker, nationally and internationally. Davis is a founder of the anti-prison grassroots organization Critical Resistance.