Honestly, if you're looking for a comfortable weekend read, books by Angela Davis might not be the first thing you grab. They’re heavy. They’re challenging. They force you to look at things you’d probably rather ignore, like how the prison system actually works or why our definitions of "freedom" are often so narrow. But here’s the thing: you can’t really talk about modern social movements without her.
She isn’t just some historical figure from a 1970s poster.
Davis is a philosopher. A professor. A survivor. Most importantly, she’s a writer who has spent over fifty years documenting how power functions. People often start with her name because of her activism with the Black Panthers or her high-profile trial in the seventies, but her real legacy is in the ink. It’s in the way she connects things—like how she links the history of slavery to the way we police neighborhoods today.
The Essential Starting Point: Women, Race, and Class
If you only ever read one of the many books by Angela Davis, make it Women, Race, and Class. Published in 1981, this book basically laid the groundwork for what we now call intersectionality, even before that word was a common part of our vocabulary.
Davis doesn't just give you a dry history lesson. She drags you through the messy, often disappointing reality of the suffrage movement. She points out—quite bluntly—how early white feminists often abandoned Black women to secure their own gains. It’s a tough pill to swallow. She looks at the abolitionist movement and the fight for the vote not as separate events, but as a single, tangled web of struggles.
The prose is dense but urgent. You’ll find yourself highlighting entire pages. She argues that you can’t solve sexism without looking at capitalism, and you can’t talk about class without talking about racism. It’s all one big, ugly machine. Most people think these ideas are "new" or "woke" trends from the 2020s, but Davis was laying it all out clearly forty years ago.
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Why Are Prisons and Freedom?
Then there’s Are Prisons Obsolete? This one is short. You can finish it in an afternoon. But it will probably ruin your sleep for a week.
Davis asks a question that sounds radical, or maybe even crazy to some: do we actually need prisons? She isn't just talking about "reform" or making cells cleaner. She’s talking about abolition. She explores the "prison-industrial complex"—a term she helped popularize—and shows how the legal system became a way to manage poverty and racial "others" after slavery ended.
It’s sort of wild how she predicts the massive explosion of the private prison industry. She writes about how we’ve been trained to think of prison as "natural," like the sun rising, rather than a specific political choice we’ve made.
Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Connecting the Dots
If you want to see how her mind works in the modern era, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle is the go-to. It’s a collection of essays and interviews that bridges the gap between the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Lives Matter era.
What’s fascinating here is her internationalism. She doesn't just stay in the U.S. context. She talks about Palestine. She talks about South Africa. She talks about how the militarization of police in Ferguson, Missouri, looks an awful lot like the tactics used in other parts of the world.
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- She challenges the "hero" narrative of history.
- She hates the idea that one person (like MLK or herself) makes change.
- She argues that movements, not individuals, create progress.
- The tone is surprisingly hopeful, despite the heavy subject matter.
Davis reminds us that "freedom" isn't a destination you reach and then stop. It’s a verb. It’s something you have to do every single day. This is probably why her work resonates so much with younger activists today. She doesn't talk down to people; she talks with them.
The Autobiography: More Than Just a Memoir
You’ve got to check out Angela Davis: An Autobiography. It was edited by Toni Morrison. Think about that for a second. Two of the greatest minds in American history working on one text.
The book covers her childhood in Birmingham, Alabama—in a neighborhood nicknamed "Dynamite Hill" because of how often the KKK bombed Black homes—her education in Europe, and her eventual time on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. It’s a gripping story, but Davis is almost reluctant to center herself. She keeps trying to pull the spotlight away from her own face and onto the people she was organized with.
It’s kind of funny, actually. Most memoirs are "me, me, me." Hers is more like, "here is the movement I happened to be a part of." You get the drama of the 1972 trial where she faced the death penalty, but you also get a deep look into her soul and her commitment to the idea that a better world is actually possible.
Abolition Democracy and Beyond
In Abolition Democracy, Davis expands on the ideas of W.E.B. Du Bois. She argues that the end of slavery was only a "negative" freedom—the absence of chains—but not "positive" freedom, which would have required schools, land, and healthcare.
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Because the U.S. never fully committed to that positive freedom, she argues, we ended up with the modern carceral state. It’s a sophisticated argument that links 1865 to 2026. She’s essentially saying that the work of the Civil War isn’t finished yet.
How to Actually Read These Books Without Burning Out
Reading books by Angela Davis can feel like a marathon. It’s not just the vocabulary; it’s the emotional weight. If you’re dive-diving into her bibliography, don't try to power through all of it in a month.
Start with Are Prisons Obsolete? because it's the most accessible entry point to her logic. Then move to Women, Race, and Class for the historical backbone.
Pro-tip: Read her work alongside others. If you’re reading Davis, you should probably also look at The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander or the poetry of Audre Lorde. Davis exists in a conversation with these women.
One thing people get wrong is thinking she’s "anti-American." If you read her carefully, she’s actually deeply invested in the American promise—she just thinks we’ve failed to live up to it. She’s demanding better because she believes better is possible. That’s a fundamentally optimistic view, even if it’s wrapped in a critique of systemic violence.
Actionable Steps for the Conscious Reader
If you're ready to engage with these ideas beyond just turning pages, here is how you can practically apply the insights from her writing:
- Audit your news intake. Davis emphasizes how media shapes our perception of "criminals." Start noticing how local news reports on crime versus how they report on white-collar issues or corporate negligence.
- Join a reading circle. Her books are meant to be discussed. They were born out of study groups and political organizing. Finding a local community group or even an online forum to pick apart Freedom Is a Constant Struggle will give you insights you’d miss on your own.
- Support local restorative justice programs. If her arguments in Are Prisons Obsolete? move you, look for organizations in your city that focus on mediation and transformative justice rather than just calling the police for every conflict.
- Look for the intersections. Next time you’re looking at a social issue—whether it’s climate change or healthcare—ask yourself: "How does race affect this? How does class affect this?" That’s the "Davis Method" in action.
- Focus on the collective. Stop looking for a "leader" to save the day. Davis’s work teaches us that real power lies in small, consistent actions by groups of ordinary people. Volunteer for a boring, behind-the-scenes task for a cause you care about.
Reading Angela Davis isn't about checking a box on a "social justice" to-do list. It’s about retraining your brain to see the world as it actually is, rather than how we’ve been told it should be. It’s uncomfortable, sure. But once you see the patterns she describes, you can’t unsee them. And that’s usually where real change starts.