1972 - Angela Davis Acquitted of All Charges

On June 4, 1972, Black activist, scholar, and former UCLA professor Angela Davis was acquitted of all charges related to a 1970 courtroom shootout in Marin County, California. Davis had been charged with aiding and abetting kidnapping and murder after guns registered in her name were used in an attempted courtroom escape. Her trial was highly politicized, garnering international attention and sparking the global “Free Angela” movement. The jury found that Davis had no direct involvement in planning the incident. Her acquittal became a landmark moment in the struggle for civil rights and prison justice. Angela Davis would go on to become a leading figure in academic, feminist, and abolitionist circles, authoring several books on race, class, and the carceral state. Her case remains a powerful symbol of resistance, criminal justice reform, and state surveillance of Black radical activism in America.