FBI Wanted Poster.
[Davis, Angela]. FBI Wanted Poster: "Interstate Flight, Murder, Kidnaping ANGELA YVONNE DAVIS [sic]" [Wanted Flyer 457]. Washington, DC: Federal Bureau of Investigation United States Department of Justice, August 18, 1970.
FBI Wanted Poster, 16 x 10-1/2"; printed (both sides) black on off-white stock; the poster reproduces two photographs of Angela Davis, one identified as "taken 1969" and the other as "taken 1970"; at reverse is printed the address of the U.S. Post Office in Van Nuys, California and a list of FBI special agents, and their telephone numbers, throughout the country; folded to fit an envelope; tape marks at reverse where mounted to a mat; small grayish smear near "D" in signature; very good.
Inscribed by Angela Davis under her photograph in black felt tip pen, Angela Y. Davis / L.A. 10/12/97. Within the curve of the large capital "A" of her first name, she has written "Peace!" The poster includes essential information: age; height; weight; build; hair; occupation; eyes; complexion; race; nationality; and, fingerprint classification. The poster issues this caution:
Angela Davis is wanted on kidnaping and murder charges growing out of an abduction in Marin County, California, on August 7, 1970. She Allegedly has purchase several guns in the past. Consider possibly armed and dangerous. A Federal warrant was issued on August 15, 1970, at San Francisco, California, charging Davis with unlawful interstate flight to avoid prosecution for murder and kidnaping. [sic]
Angela Davis (b. 1944), the daughter of two teachers, grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. The Ku Klux Klan targeted the family's middle-class neighborhood for bombings with such frequency that it became known as "Dynamite Hill". She first gravitated toward communism while in high school, joining a Marxist-Leninist group. Her conviction that only radical politics could alleviate the injustices of the status quo cemented her commitment to communist ideology. Throughout the 1960s she became a leading figure in the Black Panthers and The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The FBI soon declared her as a “most wanted criminal.” In January, 1971 Davis was arraigned on charges of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in an attempt to free black prisoners from a Marin County courthouse. Denied bail, Davis spent 16 months in jail. She became a cause célèbre, a riveting and divisive symbol of black radicalism. Ultimately Davis was cleared of all charges. An iconic 1960s document.
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