AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY

2021, VOL. 20, NOS. 1–2, 1–38

https://doi.org/10.1080/14743892.2021.1877067

The Free Angela Movement in Global Context, 1970-1972

Daniel Rosenberg1

International support for Angela Davis appeared in varied forms, combining to form a
significant component of the Free Angela movement, whose U.S. manifestations have
been probed by the present author and others. Solidarity might be as simple as a letter
or as detailed as a resolution, as basic as a drawing or as demonstrative as a rally. It
arose as an extension of historically existing labor, radical, women’s, and peace move-
ments in many lands. Moreover, while the Sacco-Vanzetti, Scottsboro Nine and
Rosenberg cases in particular generated worldwide solidarity, the extent of global sup-
port for Angela Davis eclipses them all. The current article studies Free Angela move-
ments in diverse countries. While many will be mentioned, the article will zone in on
the Free Angela movements in Cuba, Uruguay, the Soviet Union, France and the
German Democratic Republic. The latter, which was extraordinary, receives greater
focus. Domestic U.S. and international endeavors on Davis’ behalf were interactive and
often coordinated. Leading Davis activists in the U.S. helped many countries form Free
Angela movements. Davis recognizes the reciprocity: “The international campaign had
not only exerted serious pressure on the [U.S.] government, it had also stimulated the
further growth of the mass movement at home.”2

[email protected]
1
The author acknowledges the assistance of Kurt Stand, Victor Grossman, Ginga Eichler, Heinz Birch, Carol Pittman,
Jesse Rosenberg, Jay Schaffner, Celina Rosenberg, Michael Kaplan, Tim Johnson, Archivist Jenny Gotwals at Radcliffe’s
Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Wendy Chmielewski of Swarthmore College’s Peace
Collection, the staff at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Mike Koncewicz of the Tamiment Library,
Tim Johnson, Nora Bonosky, and Peter Filardo.
Research collections are abbreviated thusly: Communist Party of the United States of America Records, Tamiment
Library: CPUSA Records; National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression Collection, Schomburg Center:
Alliance Collection; Angela Davis Defense Collection, Schomburg Center: Davis Defense Collection; Swarthmore Peace
Collection: Peace Collection; Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Historical Society; Angela Davis Papers, Radcliffe,
Schlesinger Library: Davis Papers; Jay Schaffner Papers, Tamiment Library: Schaffner Papers; James E. Jackson and
Esther Jackson Papers, Tamiment Library: Jackson Papers.
2
Charlene Mitchell, The Fight to Free Angela Davis: The Importance for the Working Class, New York, 1972; Bettina
Aptheker, The Morning Breaks: The Trial of Angela Davis, New York, 1975; Angela Davis and Bettina Aptheker, ed., If
They Come in the Morning, New York, 1971; Daniel Rosenberg, “The Free Angela Movement in the United States, 1969-
1991,” American Communist History, Volume 19, No. 1 (2020); Angela Davis, An Autobiography, New York, 1975, 398.
ß 2021 Historians of American Communism
2 D. ROSENBERG

Solidarity with people abroad who are oppressed involves the element of empathy.
Nationalism and other forms of self-consumption with “one’s own” undermine the
common bonds and feelings necessary to human progress. Class-divided systems
encourage disregard for the well-being of others, within and outside the borders of a
country. Likewise, they attempt to manufacture identification with elite interests among
working and middle-class people who have no hope of ever rising to their level.
In any case, national narrow-mindedness on the basis of a superficial kinship/super-
iority among a nation’s classes bears comparison with self-centeredness in the individual
sense, aloofness from the plight and efforts of others: I am not suffering, I am not in
pain, therefore why should I care about those who are? Given such egregious abrogation
of ethical norms, societal requirements, and classical religious teachings, U.S. society has
been built on the attempted extirpation of solidarity with Native Americans, African
and African American slaves, Vietnamese and Cuban people, Chileans, Palestinians, and
others. It blinds men to the oppression of women, obscures the need to support
LGBTQ demands for equal treatment, and inoculates too many native-born people
against sympathy for immigrants.
U.S. leaders of course belong to a system of thinking and treating people which tran-
scends the formation of the United States. Capitalism’s invocation of “every man for
himself” and “stand on your own two feet” fed insensitivity of British people to coloni-
alism, of Germans to the genocide of the Jews, of Spaniards to the extermination of the
original inhabitants of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Haiti, and the enslavement of the Native
 AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 3

Americans of Mexico and Peru. Pre-capitalist societies encouraged similar tendencies.

For instance, in the first Crusade of 1095 Pope Urban II called upon Christians “to des-
troy that vile race” of Muslims from the earth, and during the Black Death of the 14th
century Jews were murdered upon the accusation that they had caused the great plague.
Since empathy nevertheless constitutes a human impulse, it has been activated on count-
less occasions despite all pressures to the contrary. Oppressed groups have often been suc-
cessful in recognizing common interests, whether for peace, labor rights, or sympathy for
the situations and struggles of others beyond their borders. The international movement
against the U.S.-conducted war in Vietnam is a good example. Shared indignation knows
no boundaries. Some countries, like the Soviet Union provided material means with which
the Vietnamese might defend themselves. An international movement encompassing tens
of millions, alongside Cuba, the German Democratic Republic, and others helped defeat
apartheid in Southern Africa. Worldwide solidarity extended to culture, petitions, boycotts,
demonstrations, sending of support, building of hospitals and schools.
A survey would be in order. The following article will begin by tracing Free Angela
activities in the Americas (with extended treatment of Uruguay and Cuba). It proceeds
then to examine movements in Africa and Asia. Western Europe falls under the next
purview, with special attention to France. At this juncture, it is important to point out
that movements often cooperated intercontinentally: thus Free Angela committees in
Guadeloupe, the People’s Republic of Congo, and France, collaborated and shared mate-
rials. Eastern Europe comes under observation next, including extended analysis of Free
Angela developments in the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic (GDR).
Absence of documentary evidence about movements in many places should not be mis-
taken for lack of activity. Several of the movements under review operated under repres-
sive conditions. A relatively more concise review of certain lands nevertheless recognizes
the importance of their Free Angela movements. While foreign solidarity with Davis went
well beyond the demonstrations led by Communist parties, in or out of power, it is true
that Communists helped set the foundation for Free Angela committees. The Japanese,
Canadian, Finnish, Guyanese, South African, Italian, Sri Lankan, Canadian, Uruguayan,
Ecuadorian, Danish, Chilean, French, Mexican, Indian, West German, and British
Communist parties made Davis’ freedom the subject of rallies, petitioning, and resolu-
tions. The CIA made note of the French Party’s stance. “Angela Davis,” proclaimed the
French Communist Party, “has become the courageous symbol” of anti-racism.3
Latin American, North American, and Caribbean parties felt the same way. “Davis,
said the Communist-led Progressive Youth Organization of Guyana, was “the unfortu-
nate victim of a deliberate and vicious FBI frame-up.” Mexican Communists called “for
the freedom of North American political prisoners, especially Angela Davis.” U.S.
expatriate artist and Mexican resident Elizabeth Catlett devoted “Sitter” to Davis.4

3
Aptheker, The Morning Breaks, 35, 58, 67; Greetings from Fraternal Communist & Workers Parties to the 20th
Convention, CPUSA, Schaffner Papers, Box 11: Folder 20th CPUSA Convention; French Communist Party birthday
greetings to Henry Winston, CIA Daily Report Foreign Radio Broadcasts, 91-100; Ecuadorian pendant at Angela Davis
Outspoken, https://www.glbthistory.org/angela-davis Accessed September 2, 2020.
4
Progressive Youth Organization of Guyana, Resolution on Angela Davis, CPUSA Papers, Box 122, Folder 20; “Communist
Parties of U.S., Mexico Issue Joint Statement,” Daily World, June 15, 1971; Elizabeth Catlett, “Sitter,” National Portrait
Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
4 D. ROSENBERG

Chilean Communist member of Parliament Gladys Marin termed the Davis case
“political gangsterism,” a relentless siege. Fania Davis Jordan visited Chile and spoke in
many cities, including Valparaiso and Santiago where she described the impact of
Davis’ prison conditions on her health. From time to time, Angela Davis also received
greetings from Colombia.
 AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 5

Committees to Free Angela Davis operated in a number of Canadian cities. Some

were tied to local Black Canadian civil rights movements, as in Nova Scotia. The
Toronto committee, with Communist and other Left participants threw a birthday party
for Davis as a fundraiser. Toronto in fact boasted two different Free Angela groups, one
of which sponsored a concert featuring a choir, dancers, and an ensemble of the Afro-
Caribbean Association of Manitoba.5

Gladys Marin, “Angela Davis,” El Siglo, March 31, 1971, Jackson Papers, Box 13, Folder 58; Documentary Record, World
5

Federation of Democratic Youth, Executive Committee, Valparaiso, Chile, September 6-7, 1971, Alliance Collection, Box
3, Folder 7; Javier Cardona (Cali, Colombia) to Angela Davis, December 24, 1971, Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder 6;
Michael Tutton, “Joan Jones, Who Helped Form Black Rights Movement in Nova Scotia, Dies at 79,” The Canadian
Press, April 2, 2019; “Canadian Groups Sends Birthday Greetings to Angela,” Baltimore Afro-American, February 26, 1972.
6 D. ROSENBERG

Uruguayans sent scores of petitions with thousands of signatures endorsing

Angela Davis’ release. The country’s Committee for the Life and Freedom of Angela
Davis maintained contact with the National United Committee in San Francisco. In
addition, committee members corresponded with Davis directly. During the 1970-
1972 framework of the Davis case, Uruguay’s rulers moved to the right until fasten-
ing a military dictatorship upon the nation. However, strong leftwing currents,
including the Communist Party, persisted amidst declining freedoms. Efforts to
unite centrist and leftwing parties were continuous. An examination of the evidence
demonstrates that women were the leading figures and members of the Angela Davis
committee. Cognizant of previous U.S. political repressions and reflective of left-
wingers within (for the Communist Party had expressed solidarity with Davis), the
Uruguayan committee “in the name of justice” placed Davis among heroes and mar-
tyrs: “the Rosenbergs, Sacco and Vanzetti, the eight [there were actually
nine] … Negroes of Scottsboro, the martyrs of Chicago” (likely referring to the labor
organizers executed in Chicago in 1887, a year after a suspicious bomb took the lives
of policemen).6
“In the name of the women from all social and political sectors of society,” the Free
Angela committee called upon U.S. authorities to “respect her life and liberty” in a
petition to the U.S. ambassador. The hundreds of signatures following the demand
hint of a broad appeal. A handful of men signed the bulky document, again signifying
that the committee aimed its pitch to women. Signatures went on for stapled page
after page on 8” by 11” paper, inscribers seeking every nook and cranny to write their
names. In addition, Davis received personal letters from Uruguayan sympathizers,
eschewing the formulaic. Said Reina Miranda: “Dear Angela: You are not alone. All
our love from Uruguay is for you. We are asking for your freedom. We do not want
racist discrimination. Love and Peace.” A number of personal notes appeared on tem-
plated postcards, another initiative by the Free Angela committee of Uruguay, with a
generic message on the back and a photo on the front. On hers Blanca Alvarez added
“We Uruguayan women demand freedom for Angela Davis.” A woman known as
“Mamacita Yolanda” appended a poem to Davis on a postcard, concluding with “Your
bravery transcends the Americas and the world.”7
The Cuban efforts to free Angela Davis were of course different from anything else
in the Americas, because of the country’s socialist direction. One may partially explain
the Cuban experience as a result of the ruling Communist Party’s influence in the cam-
paign. But expressions of solidarity with Davis also appeared within wide sections of the
population and with distinct originality, suggesting a certain spirit that transcended
instruction or peer pressure. After all, official U.S. policy from the blockade to the Bay
of Pigs hurt all Cubans, face-to-face with the land of the free. Citizens of the German
Democratic Republic, which also bordered U.S.-backed adversaries, showed similar feel-
ings for Angela Davis.

6
Greetings from Fraternal Communist & Workers Parties to the 20th Convention, CPUSA, 1972, Schaffner Papers, Box
11, Folder: 20th CPUSA Convention; Comisi
on por la Vida y La Libertad de Angela Davis to Angela Davis, June 15,
1972, CPUSA Papers, Box 138, Folder 18.
7
Comisi
on por la Vida y la Libertad de Angela Davis to the Ambassador of the United States, January 3, 1972, CPUSA
Papers, Box 138, Folder 18; Reina Miranda to Angela Davis, April 17, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 32; Blanca
B. Alvarez to Angela Davis, n.d., CPUSA Records, Box 139, Folder 5; “Mamacita Yolanda” to Angela Davis, April 17,
1972, CPUSA Records, Box 139, Folder 5.
 AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 7

Sarah Seidman’s research demonstrates that Davis, who had visited Cuba long before
her arrest, was particularly highly regarded in the country. Seidman points out that
“Davis’s gender, operating in tandem with her socialism and blackness and membership
in the American Communist Party (CPUSA)” drew Cuban support to her, “in the con-
text of long-standing veneration for the figure of the revolutionary woman warrior in
Cuban society.” The Cuban Women’s Federation led petition drives and postcard cam-
paigns. Seidman comments that while the Federation “provided little space for public
8 D. ROSENBERG

disagreement, or even slight variations of opinion” Cuban women’s support for Davis
did not require orchestration. Art and song sustained Davis’ image as a “visually iconic
revolutionary ideal,” or quite simply “a recognized and beloved figure.”8
Buttressed by the Women’s Federation, the Cuban Committee to Free Angela Davis had
its offices in a Havana apartment. It sponsored in the first place a postcard campaign (not
unlike the Uruguayan, but much larger), with a templated message on the back: “Libertad
para Angela Davis.” Many Cubans, like Vivian Alvarez, simply wrote their names under-
neath. An authoritative source observes that “template postcards” were one of the most
common forms of Free Angela agitation abroad. Each postcard had a photo of Davis in red
and black on the front. Thousands were sent to Davis. There was just enough space under
the template for several signatures and occasionally a personal message: thus, seven women
working in the Ministry of Public Health managed to sign one card. One added, in script,
“You exemplify the torch that lights the new road for the oppressed people.” Ten Health
Ministry workers crammed their signatures every which way onto another card.9
Other workplace settings provided contexts for collecting signatures on postcards:
unions, schools, factories, and other government bodies. A branch of the Cuban
Communist Party inscribed a card “Yankee fascism will not break your communist integ-
rity.” Cards from neighborhood associations – the Committees for the Defense of the
Revolution (CDRs) – sometimes included a more personal, if political, inscription:
Sabrina Labrador called Davis a “courageous comrade” in one. Teresa Echevevarria wrote
in “We will bring freedom to Angela and her brothers and sisters” above her name.
University of Havana student Lylia Cuesta transmitted these words to Davis: “We encour-
age you to continue to fight with the same strength. We shall overcome!” Art major
Angelina Garcia asked Davis to visit Cuba in general and Angelina in particular after a
hoped-for vindication. The Cuban Angela Davis committee established an Art Brigade
that created posters and murals: one was shown in the African-American paper, the
Pittsburgh Courier. From Havana, “Jos
e” filled the entire small space below the template:
In the schools
In the factories
In the air
In the sea and in the cane field
Everyone calls for your freedom.10

8
Sarah J. Seidman, “Angela Davis in Cuba as Symbol and Subject,” Radical History Review, Issue 136 (January 2020), 11-
12, 18, 24-25; Seidman, “Venceremos Means We Shall Overcome: The African American Freedom Struggle and the
Cuban Revolution, 1959-1979” (doctoral dissertation, 2013): 178.
9
Notes to Subseries C, Letters Sent to Marin County Jail, 1970-1973, Davis Papers; Vivian Alvarez to Angela Davis, n.d.,
Cuban Committee to Free Angela Davis, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 19; Postcards from the Ministry of Public
Health, Cuban Committee to Free Angela Davis, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 19; Postcard from the union at the
Ministry of Industry, n.d., Cuban Committee to Free Angela Davis, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 19; poster at Angela
Davis Outspoken, https://www.glbthistory.org/angela-davis Accessed September 2, 2020; Sarah J. Seidman, “Angela
Davis in Cuba as Symbol and Subject,” Radical History Review, January 2020, 11-35.
10
Nucleo PCC, Area de Planificacion to Angela Davis, n.d., Cuban Committee to Free Angela Davis, CPUSA Records, Box
138, Folder 19; Sabrina Labrador, CDR No. 16, to Angela Davis, n.d., Cuban Committee to Free Angela Davis, CPUSA
Records, Box 138, Folder 19; CDR No. 10, Zone 3, Santiago de Cuba, to Angela Davis, n.d., Cuban Committee to Free
Angela Davis, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 19; Teresa Echevevarria to Angela Davis, n.d., Cuban Committee to Free
Angela Davis, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 19; Lylia E. Cuesta to Angela Davis, n.d., Cuban Committee to Free
Angela Davis, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 19; Angelina D. Garcia to Angela Davis, n.d., Nucleo PCC, Area de
 AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 9

Similarly the Artistic Brigade circulated poems to Davis by U.S. writer Margaret
Walker and Cuban scribe Nicolas Guillen. Guillen wrote:
How your executioners mislead themselves!
You are made of rough and glowing stuff,
a rustproof impulse,
capable of lasting through suns and rains,
through winds and moons
in the unsheltered air.
You belong to
that class of dreams in which time
has always forged its statues
and written its songs.11
By the time of the Davis case, most African nations had achieved independence
from British, French, Belgian, and other European colonialisms. Nevertheless, different
forms of foreign influence through economic control, political string-pulling, inequit-
able trade relations, and military intervention exerted substantial limits on true inde-
pendence. Especially nations embarking on more independent forms of economic and
political development – Mali, Sierra Leone, Guinea for example – faced obstacles.
Other countries seeking the same had seen their leaders overthrown, as in Ghana and
the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There were also societies still under outright
colonial rule – Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bisssau – or in the grip of apartheid
subjugation of the Black majority – South Africa, Zimbabwe. The independence move-
ments there were led by Marxists or those of more general left-wing persuasions, but
at the moment of the Davis case these movements were suppressed. Hence they would
have had difficulty expressing support for Davis publicly. Elsewhere, Communist par-
ties, with long trade union and anti-colonial histories – Sudan, Egypt, South Africa –
were outlawed. Nevertheless, the relative lack of documentary materials in U.S. libra-
ries on African support for Davis is different from absence of struggle. Thus, Davis’
early 70 s impact on the growth of feminist thought in Egypt came through despite
political repression and male supremacy. It “marked the formation of new trans-
national connections of solidarity between Davis and numerous Egyptian feminists.”

Planificacion to Angela Davis, n.d., Cuban Committee to Free Angela Davis, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 19; Sabrina
Labrador, CDR No. 16, to Angela Davis, n.d., Cuban Committee to Free Angela Davis, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder
19; CDR No. 10, Zone 3, Santiago de Cuba, to Angela Davis, n.d., Cuban Committee to Free Angela Davis, CPUSA
Records, Box 138, Folder 19; Teresa Echevevarria to Angela Davis, n.d., Cuban Committee to Free Angela Davis, CPUSA
Records, Box 138, Folder 19; Lylia E. Cuesta to Angela Davis, n.d., Cuban Committee to Free Angela Davis, CPUSA
Records, Box 138, Folder 19; Brigada Artistica del Comit
e Cubano Por La Libertad de Angela Davis, brochure, CPUSA
Records, Box 138, Folder 14; News item, Pittsburgh Courier, September 4, 1971; “Jos
e” to Angela Davis, n.d., Cuban
Committee to Free Angela Davis, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 19.
11
Brigada Artistica del Comit
e Cubano Por La Libertad de Angela Davis, brochure, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 14;
Nicolas Guillen, “Angela Davis, Philadelphia Tribune, March 7, 1972,
10 D. ROSENBERG

U.S. expatriate Shirley Graham DuBois, then living in Egypt, helped spearhead a state-
ment for Davis by Sudanese and Egyptian women.12
Thus the main anti-apartheid force, the African National Congress of South Africa,
made clear its support for Angela Davis. Therefore, the Women’s Section of the banned
ANC sent messages of solidarity to Davis and the U.S. Free Angela movement,
denouncing in October 1971 her “continued indefinite detention” while demanding “her
immediate release in respect of world opinion.” The ANC journal Sechaba, circulated
internationally, but clandestinely in South Africa, made Davis the subject of a lengthy
cover story. In turn, Davis advocated the freeing of anti-apartheid political prisoners in
South Africa, and worked hard for the destruction of the apartheid system by maintain-
ing close contacts with the African National Congress and South African Communist
Party (SACP).

Angela Davis and Kendra Alexander with ANC and SACP leader Chris Hani (center) 1991

The ANC’s support for Davis was more than incidental, since her reputation became
widespread among Southern Africa’s African majority prior to the overturning of apart-
heid. Moreover the leading role of Communists in the ANC further enabled solidarity
with U.S. Communist Davis. She in fact exerted an influence among some of the youth
joining the ANC in the 1970s. She became an active anti-apartheid campaigner after
her release.13

Sarah Salem, “On Transnational Feminist Solidarity: The Case of Angela Davis in Egypt,” Signs: Journal of Women in
12

Culture and Society, Volume 43, Number 2, 245-267; Davis and Aptheker, If They Come in the Morning, 1971, 276.
13
Free Angela, Vol. 1 No. 12 (November 8, 1971), CPUSA Records, Box 255, Folder 39; Bettina Aptheker, Intimate Politics,
Emeryville, 2006, 250; Sechaba, Vol. 5, No. 3 (March 1971); Angela Davis : Release all Southern African Political
Prisoners, poster, 1974, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2017649113/ Accessed September 10, 2020;
Gerald Horne, White Supremacy Confronted, New York, 2019, 579, 653, 674, 705, 832.
 AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 11

In the People’s Republic of Congo, not to be confused with the Democratic Republic
or “Zaire” as it was then known, youth formed a Free Angela committee in late 1971.
To be clear, stated its spokesperson, “We are exclusively a committee of youth; we pride
ourselves on our enthusiasm and confidence in our cause.” The country had recently
undergone a change of power, bringing to the fore young Marxists, along with a ruling
party pledged to socialistic ideals. Small wonder that the Congolese committee shared
materials and paraphernalia with the Free Angela movement in France in which
12 D. ROSENBERG

Communists figured prominently. Through defending Davis, the Comit
e pour la def
ense
et lib
eration d’Angela Davis promised to aid “by extension, all Black political prisoners
and all who fight for dignity.”14
A number of Asian Communist parties mounted campaigns. This was true in Japan
and the Philippines. India had several Free Angela committees, the largest at Delhi
University. Petition drives and civil disobedience campaigns, including people without
Communist inclinations, characterized the Indian effort. Her cause was especially popu-
lar among women and students. The center-left National Federation of Indian Women
brought a written protest to the gates of the U.S. embassy. The embassy also saw a pro-
test of several hundred Indian students and teachers. Davis, according to the influential
Indian news magazine Link, “needs no introduction to the world. Everywhere students,
teachers, and the general public have become personally involved in her future, and
wish to see that she receives a semblance of justice in the land which calls itself the
land of liberty … ” Neighboring Sri Lanka (Ceylon at the time) had a solidarity move-
ment as well, with substantial female involvement. In mid-1971, four thousand women
besieged the U.S embassy to protest Davis’ incarceration. Little evidence exists however
of support for Davis from the People’s Republic of China, then embroiled in a major
split with the Soviet Union and its allies, whom Davis’ CPUSA supported. But Chinese
leaders proclaimed backing for the Black Panther Party. However, some U.S. organiza-
tions with ties to China did speak out on Davis’ behalf. Long after she was freed, Davis
established contacts with Chinese scholars and universities, encouraging her own stu-
dents in California to study there.15
Western European protests for Davis’ freedom were sustained and organized.
Movements in several countries were larger than most. Belgian cities Brussels, Antwerp,
and Ostend witnessed well-attended demonstrations, resulting in a national Free Angela
committee. A Finnish protestor wrote President Richard Nixon: “How many persons
are you going to send to jail or ultimately kill before you see that these conflicts are cre-
ated by your own society? It is your model of society that should be changed.” Child
care workers at an Austrian orphanage found “neither a reason for prosecuting the
Communist and civil rights activist Angela Davis nor grounds for delaying a trial.”
Swedish television viewers tuned in to one of Davis’ longest jail interviews, part of a ser-
ies of sympathetic late 60 s-early 70 s profiles of young African-American leaders.16

14
Comit
e pour la defense et lib
eration d’Angela Davis, M. Lissouba to Committee to Free Angela Davis, January 9, 1972,
CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 16; Comit
e pour la defense et lib
eration d’Angela Davis to Committee to Free Angela
Davis, November 12, 1971, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 20.
15
Greetings from Fraternal Communist & Workers Parties to the 20th Convention, CPUSA, 1972, Schaffner Papers, Box
11, Folder: 20th CPUSA Convention; materials on India in Jackson Papers, Box 13, Folder 58; “The Fate of Angela
Davis,” Link, October 3, 1971; “Free Angela Davis,” Documents and Information, Women’s International Democratic
Federation, No. 4, 1971; Hongshan Li, “Building a Black Bridge: China’s Interaction with African-American Activists
during the Cold War,” Journal of Cold War Studies, 20 no. 3 (Summer 2018): 114-152; Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power,
New York, 1992, 302-304; Robin D.G. Kelley and Betsy Esch, “Black Like Mao: Red China and Black Revolution,” Souls,
Fall 1999; Broghan MacIntyre, “Hear how Angela Davis inspired NMG girls to go to Beijing in 1995,” New Moon Girls,
January 1, 2016
16
Minutes of Political Committee meeting, April 20, 1971, CPUSA Records, Box 223, Folder 16; Henrick Wahlberg
(Helsinki) to President R. Nixon, January 13, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 22; Educators, teachers, and
technical personnel of the Pestalozzi Children’s Home, Kreztanne, Austria, n.d., Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder 5;
Interview with Angela Davis, Swedish Television, 1972, https://iwspace.wordpress.com/2015/05/30/angela-davis-1972-
prison-interview-perfectly-explains-the-violence-in-baltimore/ and https://www.ifcfilms.com/films/the-black-power-
mixtape Accessed September 16, 2020.
 AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 13

In the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), a particularly energetic com-

mittee operated in Frankfurt. Organizing efforts, stimulated in part by such visiting Free
Angela leaders as Fania Davis Jordan, Franklin Alexander, and Bettina Aptheker, spread
to universities and other cities, often branching out of anti-apartheid groups. Three
thousand demonstrated in Hanover. Four thousand turned out for the first rally in
Frankfurt. Committees operated in Munich, Hanover, Dusseldorf, Bochum and many
other cities, where demonstrations took place. Even earlier, a massive support move-
ment had already emerged in behalf of the persecuted Black Panthers, joining the pro-
test marches, teach-ins, petitions, and concerts against the Vietnam War. Moreover, a
movement in support of the rights of refugees in the Federal Republic had long oper-
ated. Of especial interest to the Davis campaign were the ongoing joint interactions
between African-American GIs and West German peace and social activists. Numerous
U.S. combatants sent to Vietnam also registered their solidarity with Angela Davis.17
Statements of support came from countries under dictatorships, Spain, Portugal, and
Greece, as well as from Ireland, split by British rule. Somehow, Portuguese civil liberties
activists got hold of Free Angela buttons. Spanish Communist Dolores Ibarurri issued a
call to the women of Europe and the Americas: unite yourselves, raise your voices
against the unfair trial of Angela Davis, and fight for the rights of Black Americans to
live as equals. Members of her own party reiterated the message: “Angela Davis must
go free.” Greek political prisoners sent “our warm blessings to for your speedy release;
and we send you a symbolic present expressed in our deep respect and love for you.”
Irish empathizers mobilized for Davis’ release. Northern Irish Communist and union
leader Betty Sinclair wrote scornfully that Davis was being denied in prison “the facili-
ties they would gladly extend to the smallest gangster who was fighting to prove his
‘innocence.’”18
The head of the Faculty Committee for Angela Davis at UCLA commented that
many Europeans felt Davis was a heroine. Professor Henry McGee singled out Free
Angela movements in the Soviet Union, Sweden, and Britain. British supporters signed
thousands of petitions and templated postcards, in the fashion of allies elsewhere and
with a similar range of inscriptions: from simple to detailed. Once again, the cards con-
tained enough room to write a note or add a few more signatures: “We are with you in
your struggle. We shall fight for your freedom. We shall overcome.” It is of interest to
see how the latter words were an international refrain. A British trade union leader told
Davis he could not imagine “the effectiveness of the grip which near Fascist establish-
ment has over the whole progressive movement in the United States.” But “from our
Sheffield region, we most humbly place ourselves at your avail. Any request you wish to

17
Interview with Ginga Eichler, March 9, 2020; Aptheker, The Morning Breaks, 67; Aptheker, Intimate Politics, 255, 257;
Maria Ho€hn, “The Black Panther Solidarity Committees and the Voice of the Lumpen,” German Studies Review, Vol. 31,
No. 1 (Feb. 2008), pp. 133-154; Aptheker, The Morning Breaks, 58, 73; Stefanie Senger, “Globales Engagement im
Kalten Krieg. Internationale Solidarit€at in Ost- und Westdeutschland,” H-Net Reviews in the Humanities & Social
Sciences, September 2016, 1-4.
18
EPHEMERA - BIBLIOTECA E ARQUIVO DE JOS
E PACHECO PEREIRA, ARQUIVO, Davis, Angela, Emblemas - pins -
magnetos, Free Angela Davis, Repress~ao, https://ephemerajpp.com/2014/09/04/eua-free-angela-davis/ Accessed
September 2, 2020; Dolores Ibarurri, “A Las Mujeres De Europa y America!”, n.d., Jackson Papers, Box 13, Folder 58;
Letter from Spanish Communists to Angela Davis, November 11, 1971, Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder 3; Political
prisoners of Aegina prison to Angela Davis, n.d., Jackson Papers, Box 6, Folder 4; Greetings from Fraternal Communist
& Workers Parties to the 20th Convention, CPUSA, Schaffner Papers, Box 11, Folder: 20th CPUSA Convention; Betty
Sinclair to Angela Davis, April 1971, Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder 3.
14 D. ROSENBERG

forward, we shall fulfill.” The leadership of the National Union of Miners in Scotland,
long a stronghold of militant labor unionism, endorsed Davis. A Yorkshire Communist
advised “keep your chin up and keep on fighting, we all love you so very much.”19
British Communists played a significant role in starting Free Angela committees,
which together assembled a mass demonstration in London. Said committees partici-
pated in smaller rallies and meetings as well, for example a George Jackson memorial
gathering to which Angela Davis sent a letter of support. In this light, Britain had a
Soledad Brothers movement already in place by the time Davis was arrested. The wide-
ranging British anti-apartheid movement, which included numerous members of the
African National Congress of South Africa, also flowed into the defense effort.
Solidarity with Davis was represented in the cultural field as well, exhibited by the song
dedicated to her by the Rolling Stones, whose lyrics however were written in Black dia-
lect, purportedly to lampoon racists. Guitarist Keith Richards remembered, “We had
never met her, but we admired her from afar.”20

19
“Angela Davis Considered ‘Heroine’ by Europeans,” Los Angeles Sentinel, June 24, 1971; petition from London, CPUSA
Records, Box 262, Folder 1; David Shannon, Bob and Avril Cash, John Tarver to Angela Davis, May 1971, Alliance
Collection, Box 1, Folder 3; Tony Marlow to Angela Davis, July 8, 1971, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 33;
“International Support,” Free Angela, Vol. 1, No. 12 (November 8, 1971), CPUSA Records, Box 255, Folder 39; Gordon
Ashberry to Angela Davis, March 3, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 34.
20
Gus Hall and Henry Winston to John Gollan, November 11, 1971, Jackson Papers, Box 6, Folder 7; Aptheker, The
Morning Breaks, 67; T.J. O’Flaherty, “1,000 Honor Jackson in London,” The Militant, October 1, 1971; Friends of
Soledad, Soledad Brothers News, London, May 1972; Forward to Freedom: The History of the British Anti-Apartheid
Movement 1959-1994, https://www.aamarchives.org/ Accessed September 16, 2020; Rolling Stones, “Sweet Black
Angel,” from Exile on Main Street, Rolling Stones Records, 1972; Matt Wake, “The story behind The Rolling Stones’
Angela Davis song,” https://www.al.com/life/2019/02/the-story-behind-the-rolling-stones-angela-davis-song.html,
February 13, 2019, Accessed September 16, 2020; poster at Angela Davis Outspoken, https://www.glbthistory.org/
angela-davis Accessed September 2, 2020.
 AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 15

The biggest Free Angela movements in Western Europe arose where the Left was par-
ticularly strong. Italian youth organizations had united across ideological lines in a Free
Angela coalition. The main result of their cooperation was a mass postcard campaign.
16 D. ROSENBERG

“Let Us Save the Life of Angela Davis” covered the front side, with a photo of Davis
taken the day she was arrested.

In addition, Italians wrote their own letters to Davis. From Pesaro, Claudio Lupier
(apologizing for his English) vowed “I tell you that I shall struggle always in the world
for the freedom of … Angela Davis.” Italian children also corresponded with Davis,
including Daniela Folloni from Novi after reading a translation of Davis’ and others’ writ-
ings under the title “In the Belly of the Beast,” which appeared in the United States as If
They Come in the Morning. (Thanks to the efforts of Angela Davis and Bettina Aptheker,
the book was published all over the world, although it included content with which some
U.S. Communist leaders disagreed, leading them to discourage foreign parties from issu-
ing it, according to Bettina Aptheker). Initiated by the Italian Communist Party, seven
thousand marched for Davis in Bologna, six thousand in Florence. The Party’s newspaper
L’Unita consistently featured appeals for Davis’ freedom. Representatives of the arts made
their own statements. Thus 64 film directors and screenwriters, including Pierre-Paolo
Passolini, Damiano Damiani, Nanni Loi, Ugo Gregoretti, Nelso Risi, Luigia Zampa, and
Cesare Zavattini, signed an appeal for Davis.21

“Aretha Franklin Says She’ll Pay Angela Davis’ Bail,” Indianapolis Recorder, December 12, 1970; FGCI, FGSI, MGDC,
21

MGPSIU, MGPRI to Angela Davis, November 1970, Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder 1; Claudio Lupier to Angela Davis,
February 2, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 21; Daniela Folloni to Angela Davis, February 2, 1972, CPUSA
Records, Box 138, Folder 16; Aptheker, Intimate Politics, 282-283; Aptheker to author, August 18, 2020; Davis and
Aptheker, If They Come in the Morning, 1971; Aptheker, The Morning Breaks, 67; materials from Italy, 1971-1972,
CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 16; “Davis Move Urged in Italy,” New York Times, November 26, 1970; “Aretha
Franklin Ready with Bail for Davis,” Daily World, December 1, 1971.
 AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 17

French activists built up Western Europe’s largest Angela Davis movement. A

Baltimore Afro-American correspondent told his readers, “A lot of French people are
alert to what happens in the USA.” He quoted the French Communists: “Miss Davis is
being persecuted by racists in the United States because she is guilty of the double
crime of being black and a Communist.” But, said the reporter, all the French papers
were covering the Davis story, “no matter their political hue.” In fact, “it would be hard
to find an over-18 French person who can’t tell you immediately who Angela Davis is.”
Known for creative work and leftwing proclivities, respected French or France-based fig-
ures like Yves Montand, Costa Gavras, Mikis Theodorakis, and Simone Signoret spoke
out for Davis. Poet-playwright Jean Genet made a special demand for Davis’ freedom.
With Fania Davis Jordan speaking in French, 60,000 marched to the Place de la Bastille,
the French Revolution’s point of ignition. Traveling in France at the time, an apolitical
U.S. student “noticed posters advertising a ‘Free Angela’ rally at the Sorbonne. The
Grand Amphith
eatre was packed, and I recall sitting quite high up in one of the gal-
leries. After a series of speeches, … the entire audience rose to sing “L’internationale,”
the well-known Communist anthem. Politically unaffiliated, the student did not partici-
pate, but felt “indelibly moved by the energy of the moment.”22

Ollie Stewart, Old Clippings, Newsy, Amusing,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 25, 1971; “French Entertainers
22

Back Angela,” Baltimore Afro-American, December 5, 1970; GENET PARLE D’ANGELA DAVIS, 1970, https://base.centre-
simone-de-beauvoir.com/DIAZ-510-651-0-0.html Accessed September 2, 1070; Aptheker, The Morning Breaks, 67;
“French Rallies,” Free Angela, Vol. 1, No. 12 (November 8, 1971), CPUSA Records, Box 255, Folder 39; Michael Kaplan
to author, April 1, 2020; poster at Angela Davis Outspoken, https://www.glbthistory.org/angela-davis Accessed
September 2, 2020.
18 D. ROSENBERG

In addition to rallies, the French National Committee for the Defense and Freedom
of Angela Davis embarked on and encouraged numerous petition, postcard, and letter
campaigns. Three petitions prepared by the committee serve as examples, with identical
demands presented on top but signed by people from different regions: the Eure, in
Normandy; Paris; and Dreux, in the Loire Valley. In the latter case, most of the names
are of high school students. Petitioners claimed that “because she is black and militant
on behalf of civil rights, because she strongly defends her progressive convictions, and
because she opposes war, Angela Davis, Professor of Philosophy, is in prison and threat-
ened with the gas chamber.”23
The French committee enjoyed the cooperation of not only the French Communist
Party, whose newspaper L’Humanit
e offered regular coverage, but also the Women’s
International League for Peace and Freedom and the central labor federation, or CGT.
Both the youth and women’s departments of the CGT played active roles, the latter
declaring “We consider you and embrace you fondly … .Your fight for rights and dig-
nity, against racism and injustice, is part and parcel of that which we conduct for the
right to better working conditions, for our own rights and freedoms.” These organiza-
tions produced their own petitions or postcard campaigns. Most notable were the tens
of thousands of templated postcards signed by union members. The latter were for the

23
Three petitions from the National Committee for the Defense and Freedom of Angela Davis,” n.d., CPUSA Records,
Box 139, Folder 9.
 AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 19

most part young workers. From all over, they mailed out birthday and season’s greet-
ings cards. Like parallel efforts, the postcards contained a pre-stamped message in script
underneath “General Youth Federation of the CGT.” One template from the end of
1971 hoped that 1972 would witness “the moment of your liberation.” Below, signatures
were scrawled in pen, sometimes more than one per card. French people also wrote let-
ters to Davis, separate from the postcards. “Kassim” and his friends expressed their sup-
port, and hoped someday to meet her. French railroad workers in Paris-Montparnesse
collaborated on a lengthy message, with greater scope than the postcard template: “At
this time, when the American racists are about to judge you, we send all of our support
to you and all progressive people around the world, for your struggle is that of human
freedom.” Postal workers offered comment as well, in a letter from a group in Lyons,
which told Davis to expect a delivery of postcards too. Clearly a Communist, one
assured Davis separately of his opposition to “this racist, anti-communist enemy,” add-
ing “comrade, you must know that I am not the only one in France who feels this
way.” Postal employee Noelle Le Berre asked Davis if she had seen a recent movie on
Sacco and Vanzetti, and solicited her opinion. She was sadly persuaded that the major-
ity of white Americans were “hateful.” The French section of the Women’s
International League for Peace and Freedom despaired that “a courageous and intelli-
gent woman” could be treated cruelly but “We hope we can confidently expect justice
from your country with respect to this humane individual.”24

“Angela Davis: l’ic^one Sweet Black Angel a l’Humanit
e,” translated Saturday April 13, 2013, by David Lundy; Femmes
24

Travailleuses de CGT to Angela Davis, March 8, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 16; Postcards from CGT Youth,
Alliance Collection, Box 2, Folder 5, Folder 6, Folder 7, Folder 8; French CGT postcards, CPUSA Records, Box 139,
Folder 2, Folder 3, Folder 4; CGT postcards, end of 1971, Alliance Collection, Box 2, Folder 4; Angela Davis Letters of
Support, CPUSA Records, Box 475, Folder 40; “Kassim” to New York Committee to Free Angela Davis, June 20, 1972,
CPUSA Records, Box 475, Folder 41; Les Cheminots de Paris-Montparnesse to Angela Davis, February 5, 1972, CPUSA
Records, Box 138, Folder 16; CGT Postal Workers, Lyon, n.d., to Angela Davis, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 23;
Postal worker to Angela Davis, n.d., CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 23; Noelle Le Berre to Angela Davis, n.d., CPUSA
Records, Box 138, Folder 23; Ligue Internationale de Femmes pour la Paix et la Libert
e, statement, November 26,
1971, Peace Collection, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Series H, Box 1.
20 D. ROSENBERG

Anna Komj
athy: Freedom for Angela Davis, 1972, Hungary. #Komj
athy Anna, in
Krist
of Nagy, “Angela Davis Goes East? White Skin and Black Masks in the Art of
Socialist Hungary,” World Literature Studies, October 1, 2016.
Eastern European countries, governed by Communist parties and sharing socialist policies,
resemble Cuba only slightly during the Free Angela campaign. Generally anti-capitalist in pur-
view and basis, they could identify with the Communist professor unjustly jailed in the United
States. Historian Gerald Horne has long demonstrated that racial discrimination and persecu-
tion in the United States was the chronic Achilles heel of U.S. claims as the land of the free:
“For it was during the cold war that Washington realized that it would be difficult at best to
charge Moscow credibly with human rights violations, as long as a despicable and atrocious
apartheid prevailed on these shores … ” The contradictions between U.S. assertions of equality
at home and the persecution of Paul Robeson or Angela Davis inevitably helped to spur move-
ments abroad in their support. Thus nearly all socialist countries witnessed Free Angela activ-
ities, and as a body constituted a consistent force in her defense. “At the center of the
international movement,” notes Davis, “was the socialist community of nations.”25
However, the solidarity efforts of Eastern European countries varied widely, and also differed
from the Cuban movement. The degree of organization of Hungarian, Polish, or Soviet com-
mittees for Davis depended on several factors including how well their populations respected

25
Gerald Horne, W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography, Santa Barbara, 2010, xiv; Horne, Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary,
London, 2016, 145; Horne, Black & Red: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War, 1944-1963,
Albany, 1986, 223-253; Davis, An Autobiography, 398.
 AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 21

their Communist parties and whether their governments had acquired a positive reputation
among their people. It likewise hinged on how these governments encouraged or expected citi-
zens to develop genuine fraternal feelings. The Cuban example shows a combination of coordi-
nated activity and individual contributions. As shall be demonstrated, many people in the
German Democratic Republic belonged to anti-apartheid and anti-colonial organizations that
were active on campuses and in workplaces. Unlike the GDR, Cuba, and Soviet Union, where
millions supported Davis’ freedom, such nations as Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, and
Czechoslovakia appear to have had much smaller scale Free Angela movements.
It helped that Fania Davis Jordan, Bettina Aptheker, and Franklin Alexander, among
others, toured the European continent several times on Davis’ behalf, receiving warm
receptions in Eastern European socialist countries. With respect to Hungary, the German
Democratic Republic, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union, Jordan herself
explained that “the aim of my trip is to establish contacts with organizations coming out
in defense of Angela.” Women’s, solidarity, and international organizations in these coun-
tries would have handled the arrangements for tours like Jordan’s. Such was accomplished
by the Budapest-headquartered World Federation of Democratic Youth, which conducted
its own Free Angela campaign. Eastern Europeans did write to Davis, and there were
postcards with templates sent to her, signed by many. Hungarian Communist philosopher
Georg Lukacs, noted for taking independent positions on numerous issues, circulated a
statement for Davis that was signed by “59 leading European intellectuals and over 1,000
European students.” Lukacs sounded the warning bell: “The signers of this appeal are
united in their anxiety that an assault is being prepared, within the formal, irreproachable
workings of the political system, against an innocent human being … ”26
An interesting study posits that dissident Hungarian artists joined their nation’s Free
Angela movement in order to convey both messages of solidarity and modes of critique
of their own society. Scholar Meredith Roman points out that dissidents in the socialist
countries were not customarily sympathetic to movements for equality and justice
among African-Americans. Soviet scientist Andrei Sakharov’s letter to Richard Nixon
on behalf of Angela Davis constitutes something of a curious exception, although simul-
taneously he also appealed to the Soviet government to free certain dissenters. However
Hungarian painters and sculptors backing Davis while critiquing their government
belonged to an actual artists’ movement: the “Orfeo Group,” Krist
of Nagy argues that
Hungarian “governmental agitation made her a widely celebrated cultural icon in state-
socialist regimes, while at the same time she was a role model for uniting militant activ-
ism and intellectual radicalism.” The Orfeo Group was critical of Hungarian socialism,
but solidarity with Davis gave them a chance to express themselves without persecution.
Says Nagy, “Hungarian underground artists … appropriated Davis in their subversive

I. Lebedev, “Invaluable Support,” Pravda, November 2, 1971; Documentary Record, World Federation of Democratic
26

Youth, Executive Committee, Valparaiso, Chile, September 6-7, 1971, Alliance Collection, Box 3, Folder 7; World
Federation of Democratic Youth, telegram to Judge Arnason, President Nixon, and Governor Reagan, July 2, 1971,
CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 30; Letters to Angela Davis from Czechoslovakia, 1971, Series C, Letters to Marin
County Jail, 1970-1973, Davis Papers; Letters to Angela Davis from Hungary, 1971, Series C, Letters to Marin County
Jail, 1970-1973, Davis Papers; Angela Davis Solidarity Letters: Hungary, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 30; Letters to
Angela Davis from Poland, 1972, Series C, Letters to Marin County Jail, 1970-1973, Davis Papers; Letters to Angela
Davis from the Soviet Union, 1971, Series C, Letters to Marin County Jail, 1970-1973, Davis Papers; Georg Lukacs
Appeal, in Davis and Aptheker, If They Come in the Morning, 278-279.
22 D. ROSENBERG

projects against the local regime and used both her political and racial otherness for
their distinction-making that allowed for their own critique of state socialism.”27
But more straightforward support for Davis highlighted the period. Many personal
notes to Davis suggest that individuals took their own initiatives within the scope of
government-Party pro-Davis policies. Thus, Bulgarian high school senior Ani Ikonova
wrote to the National United Committee in San Francisco a detailed letter. As was com-
mon to foreign supporters, whether German, French, Cuban, Italian, Congolese, or
Uruguayan, Ikonova asked the U.S. committee to “please … give my greetings to
Angela” and put in a special request for “some badges with Angela’s image on them,”
since these were very popular among younger backers. Hungarian Ivan Talpas corre-
sponded with the New York Committee to Free Angela Davis rather than the National
United Committee, but his sentiments paralleled Ikonova’s. He stated quite bluntly: “I
would like to work with the Committee to Free Angela Davis.” Tens of thousands
attended Free Angela rallies in Budapest, as well as in Sofia, Bulgaria.28
The Soviet Union launched a broader range of Free Angela actions than most of its
counterparts in Eastern Europe. Yet its efforts and messaging pale in size and scope
with those of the German Democratic Republic. Still, the Soviet movement embraced
both official and unofficial forms. Meredith Roman points out that the persecution of
Angela Davis provided her Soviet defenders with strong arguments against hypocrisy of
U.S. calls for Soviet democracy: While indicting US racism was a constant in Soviet
propaganda, the focus on the repression of Black Power activists also reflected the real-
ity that African-Americans, and the Black Panther Party in particular (as the most
prominent Black Power organization) “faced the most severe repression among US pro-
test groups; this was no exaggeration of Soviet journalists.” In this light, “Davis’s status
as a young African-American female communist – ‘the daughter of the American peo-
ple’ as journalists hailed her – reinforced Soviet reports that US state repression was
broad sweeping in order to eliminate widespread ‘socialist’ discontent.” Prior to the
Davis case, Soviet journalists “portrayed the Panthers as a ‘progressive,’‘leftist-radical’
organization that pursued decent housing, medical care, education, and employment for
African-Americans and all oppressed people. They “placed the repression of the
Panthers in the larger context of the US government’s efforts to stifle dissent as seen in
police violence against anti-war and student demonstrators, epitomized in the 1970
Kent State shooting.” Notes Roman: “The ‘Free Angela’ campaign was the first time
since the 1931–32 Scottsboro campaign that Soviet officials called on citizens to protest
(for nearly a two-year period) the potential execution of an African-American
comrade.” She warns: “We would be mistaken to claim that all Soviet citizens were in
reality entirely indifferent about the plight of Angela Davis.”29

27
Krist
of Nagy, “Angela Davis goes east? White Skin and Black Masks in the Art of Socialist Hungary,” World Literature
Studies, October 1, 2016, 91-92; Meredith Roman. “Soviet ‘Renegades,’ Black Panthers, and Angela Davis: The Politics
of Dissent in the Soviet Press, 1968–73,” Cold War History 18:4 (2018): 503-519; The Best Defense: Reader, “Death on
the Installment Plan,” http://reader.epubee.com/books/mobile/d6/d635ff183b1f6152f2974378c965f5f1/text00095.html
Accessed September 15, 2020.
28
Angela Davis Solidarity Letters: Bulgaria, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 17; Ani Ikonova to Committee to Free
Angela Davis, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 17; Ivan Talpas to New York Committee to Free Angela Davis, January
1, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 16; Aptheker, The Morning Breaks, 67.
29
Meredith Roman. “Soviet ‘Renegades,’ Black Panthers, and Angela Davis: The Politics of Dissent in the Soviet Press,
1968–73,” Cold War History 18, no. 4 (2018): 507, 512, 514.
 AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 23

Several aspects of the Soviet experience deserve attention. Rather than focus on post-
card campaigns, Soviet Free Angela efforts concentrated on petitions. Where numerous
people worked or studied in one place, pages of signatures emerged, sometimes several
pages stapled end-to-end to create one long sheet. Often, the heading of the petition
was preprinted, or stamped on, below which the signers wrote their names. When a cer-
tain template was followed – “Free Angela Davis” – from one workplace to the next,
from one classroom to the next, from one scientific institute to the next, then it was
clear that the templates were “part of a state-sponsored campaign.” However, youth and
children’s organizations, and labor unions were the ones who put the idea into practice.
Unions, children, teachers, and work collectives might also issue original messages to or
about Davis, derived from the overall message but expressed a bit more originally. “We
are proud of you,” added the pupils of school number two in Alexandrov on a birthday
card to Davis. Squeezing in signatures was common: 242 signed one petition, for
example; 180 signed another.30
Even when children filled out their names below generalized messages – “We, stu-
dents of Moscow School #23, strongly protest the incarceration of Angela Davis” – they
frequently added a less official touch. This particularly held for high school students,
who might write their nicknames, use slang, or sign upside down or sideways. This is
exemplified in the giant hand-stenciled petition from Moscow School 23, headed “We,
students of Moscow School #23, strongly protest the incarceration of Angela Davis.”
Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova’s letter of support to Davis includes one of the child-
ren’s more lyrical statements, this from a school in Kuibyshev: “May our love for you,
Angela, melt away your prison bars.” Yet it was more common to see originally con-
ceived petitions in the GDR than in the USSR.31

30
Subseries C, Letters Sent to Marin County Jail, 1970-1973; Davis Papers; Pupils of school number 2, Alexandrov, USSR,
to Angela Davis, n.d., Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder 6.
31
Hand-made stenciled petition from Moscow school #23, n.d., CPUSA Records, Box 262, Folder 3; Valentina Nikolayeva-
Tereshkova to Angela Davis, in Davis and Aptheker, If They Come in the Morning, 280-281.
24 D. ROSENBERG

For example, many of the youthfully signed petitions were provided to schools by the
Soviet Committee in Solidarity with Angela Davis. There were times that children’s let-
ters or students’ petitions to Davis were so maturely toned that one might doubt that
 AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 25

they wrote them or grasped what they were saying. Moscow Technical School No. 42
students declared: “We demand freedom for Angela Davis, champion for the rights of
America’s Black people.” Young Pioneer Tanya Nasyrova, writing in English, spoke like
an adult: “All the months of your imprisonment we followed the events of the shameful
trial, made up by the American reactionary forces.” This tenor puts the degree of child-
ren’s actual input, though not their sympathies, into question. It resembles in pitch the
mature indignation expressed by the Soviet Women’s Committee “at brutality and injust-
ice being perpetrated in your country by the adherents of reaction and racialism toward
fighters for freedom and civil rights.” But other messages from children bore none of the
traits of adult or official input. Rimma Kashina from Sanchursk in the Kirov region stated
simply: “I hope you will get the upper hand over the forces of evil.” Adults might also
veer from templated form to convey the essence of solidarity differently. Hence, a poet
dedicated “Letter to Angela,” which repeated the refrain “Daughter of October,” referring
to the month that the Russian Revolution started in 1917. The Soviet press gave much
attention to the Free Angela campaign. It gave prominent space to the visits of people
representing the National United Committee to Free Angela Davis. As in Italy, France,
and Cuba, leading cultural figures made statements, signed petitions, wrote music, and
performed in Davis’ honor. This was duly noted in the U.S. media. Among them were
the composers Aram Khachaturian and Dmitri Shostakovich.32
While Soviet organizations and citizens, officially and unofficially, rendered support
for Angela Davis, the German Democratic Republic offers an intensely special instance
of solidarity, precisely because of the embracing character of the campaign. The over-
whelming evidence supports the insights of a close observer: “When Angela Davis was
imprisoned, in the German Democratic Republic there was a massive campaign of soli-
darity with Angela, both political like there was throughout the rest of the world, but
also to raise solidarity funds for her bail and defense.” Among the forms of fundraising
was the selling of “solidarity stamps,” postage stamps whose purchase went into a soli-
darity fund. Compared to the other socialist countries, including the Soviet Union, the
GDR was the one where people were most actively involved, including at the grassroots.
In all, the GDR’s Free Angela campaigners – and as Davis commented, “especially the
school children” –made a unique contribution to global solidarity.33
A scholar posits the dichotomies of life in the GDR: a vast social safety net, animated
by a general collective regard contrasting with the image of West German society as a
rat-race; a less frenetic approach to work, differing from the hyper-competitiveness of
the West; an “ethos of solidarity,” a ramified social security system underlined by an
egalitarian ethic manifested in such precepts as Volkssolidarit€at or People’s Solidarity,
“the organization of and for the retired and elderly … ”; but at the same time
“bureaucratic domination and inefficiency,” “pervasive official propaganda,” restricted

32
Tanya Nasyrova to Angela Davis, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 35; Soviet high school petitions, n.d., CPUSA
Records, Box 263, Folder 4; Tereshkova to Angela Davis, in Davis and Aptheker, If They Come in the Morning , 280;
TASS report, December 18, 1970, protests by Soviet women, Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder 2; Rimma Kashina to
Angela Davis, n.d., Jackson Papers, Box 1, Folder 58; Igor Brilliantov, “Letter to Angela,” May 2, 1972, CPUSA Records,
Box 138, Folder 31; I. Lebedev, “Invaluable Support,” Pravda, November 2, 1971; “Russian Plea for Angela Davis,” St.
Louis Post-Dispatch, January 7, 1971.
33
Jay Schaffner, “Solidarity, Support, Friendship: What Lessons for Future Socialists,” 2018, unpublished manuscript in
author’s possession; Jay Schaffner to author, February 28, 2020; Angela Davis to Klaus Steiniger, April 26, 1972, in
Steiniger, Angela Davis: Eine Frau schreibt Geschichte, Berlin, 2010, photo section.
26 D. ROSENBERG

travel, “censorship, hierarchical decision-making” and “pervasive if generally obtrusive

surveillance by a vast state security apparatus.”34
Recognizing that the GDR was as affected by bureaucracy and top-down political
decision-making as other European socialist countries, its Angela Davis campaign never-
theless exhibits profound differences with the others. Evidence suggests that ordinary
people were able to express, organize, and conduct solidarity activities in ways of their
own, albeit in agreement with official policies supporting Davis’ freedom. Certainly, the
Communist Party in the GDR – the Socialist Unity Party or SED – was forthright in
demanding “the immediate release of the brave American Communist Angela Davis”
and backing “the just demands of Afro-Americans as well as those of all sections of the
American people subjected to racism.” In the heat of the movement, SED branches
around the country would send their own messages to Davis. They included SED
groups located at factories, research institutes, hospitals, and other institutions, as well
as government departments. Inasmuch as the SED was the ruling party, its influence
over people, top-down or otherwise, was significant. German scholar Sophie Lorenz,
who has studied the GDR’s Angela Davis movement, submits that “internalizing” a cul-
ture of solidarity served to help create a GDR identity. Lorenz maintains that the hun-
dreds of thousands of expressions of solidarity with Davis “can be seen as mechanisms
for integrating society.” Moreover, “ritual collection of signatures or writing petitions”
was “connected with social internalization processes in everyday life in the GDR … ”35
At the same time, Germans who participated in the Free Angela campaign recall a
spirit of solidarity that had historical roots because the GDR was the specific part of
postwar Germany led by anti-Nazis, people who had been jailed, persecuted, placed in
camps, or exiled, those who had never surrendered their opposition to Hitler. Heinz
Birch, who worked in the GDR foreign ministry and the SED international relations
department, was an active contributor to the Davis movement. He submits that no
understanding of the former is possible without a grasp of the anti-Nazi experience or
the reduction of East German life to rubble after World War II. Here were a people
“who had largely lost everything” in the war, and who had to start from scratch.
Assistance from other countries meant much to them. Birch maintains that this
“contributed to developing a feeling of togetherness” that did not have to inculcated.
Thus GDR citizens donated materials – like school supplies – to the Vietnamese during
the war with the U.S. Some of this was done through private means by individuals act-
ing on their own. However, the unions, groups, and political parties like the SED, as
well as religious organizations, like the Quakers, coordinated aid as well. Birch calls this
“targeted solidarity.” For example, he says, “with our monthly membership fee in the
union, we were able to separately and voluntarily make a solidarity contribution, which
enabled the unions to provide help according to the needs in Vietnam.” Longtime GDR
activist Ginga Eichler, who “supported all solidarity movements and ideas from a young
age,” remembers that the German Peace Council and the German League for

34
Peter Marcuse, Missing Marx, New York, 1991, 53-61.
35
Greetings from Fraternal Communist & Workers Parties to the 20th Convention, CPUSA, 1972, Schaffner Papers, Box
11, Folder: 20th CPUSA Convention; petitions from the GDR, 1971-1972, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 11; petitions
from the GDR, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 18; resolutions from the GDR, CPUSA Records, Box 139, Folder 1;
Sophie Lorenz, “Heroine of the Other America”: The GDR Solidarity Movement for Angela Davis, 1970-1978,”
Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History, online edition, 10 (2013), H. 1, 38-60. Courtesy Heinz Birch.
 AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 27

International Friendship also conducted more “targeted” campaigns, for the Vietnamese,
the Algerians revolting for independence against France and African independence
movements in general, and Greek political prisoners in the late 60 s. She recalls from
the 1950s a preview of sorts of the later Davis campaign: the work of Germans for the
Stockholm Peace Appeal in the early 1950s, in which children turned out posters, songs,
cards, and murals.36
Journalist Victor Grossman, (a U.S. expatriate long resident in the GDR and now
Germany), who covered the Davis case for the newspaper Junge Welt, points out that
the command-administer authority of the SED remained, but the anti-fascist credentials
and anti-Hitler heroism of the country’s leaders made it hard to consider them foes.
Many had been in concentration camps. But “what made things both simpler and more
contradictory was that only a few meters away there was an immense, wealthy,
extremely clever and determined adversary, representing the same forces which had
recently committed the worst crimes in history.” He refers of course to the Federal
Republic of Germany, many of whose leaders were former and unreformed Nazis,
excused by the West for their anti-communism. Besides, notes Kurt Stand, there
remained “an older generation of Communists” for whom the Davis case “rekindled the
fervor, the sense of purpose, of what the GDR could be.” The meaning of the GDR was
not solely a decision of SED leaders: there had been strong leftwing traditions prior to
the attempt to build a socialist state on German soil. The Davis campaign “recalled the
GDR’s roots in the struggle against fascism.” It “combined elements of the German left’s
traditional internationalism at a moment (perhaps the last moment) when a renewal of
vibrancy in the GDR proved possible,” observes Stand. Fifty years later, Davis remains
so well-remembered in Germany that visitors to the U.S. today are often asked by their
friends to say “hi” to Angela Davis if they see her.37
Likewise, artist Catrin Lorch remembers the GDR’s solidarity impulses against racism
long preceding the Davis case: support for Paul Robeson and Nelson Mandela, exhibi-
tions of African-American artists, backing of anti-apartheid movements in South Africa
and Zimbabwe, and aid to anti-racist, anti-colonial movements in Mozambique and
Angola. Solidarity concerts were an important and popular manifestation of such senti-
ments. Nevertheless, “the problem was, of course, the inconsistency of a state that
described itself as anti-racist, but which never found its way into everyday practice.
These personalities were revered, but the actual racist socialization is not dealt with.
And here the circle closes again to the actuality – whether in East or West Germany.”
Yet GDR solidarity culture was a constant, as scholar Stefanie Senger shows with
regards to both the Davis case and the anti-apartheid movement. Topics of presenta-
tions delivered included West German solidarity with "Boat People" refugees.
The GDR faced capitalist Europe allied with the United States, nose-to-nose. Bearing
a resemblance to the relationship between Cuba and the United States, this may have
sharpened popular sensitivities to the sufferings of others while dissipating conservative
tendencies. While many in the country were less than thrilled with “the bureaucratic rit-
uals of the GDR’s May Day parades or other such events that were carried out in

36
Heinz Birch to author, March 20, 2020; Interview with Ginga Eichler, March 9, 2020.
37
Victor Grossman to author, March 4, 2020; Kurt Stand to author, March 2, 2020; Interview with Ginga Eichler, March
9, 2020.
28 D. ROSENBERG

wooden bureaucratic forms that didn’t allow for any real sense of engagement or mean-
ing to most,” the supportive tradition and impulse persisted and grew on a popular
level, especially among youth. Junge Welt, newspaper of the Communist Free German
Youth (FDJ) showed an ability to tap into this feeling creatively. Just a year before
Davis’ arrest, Junge Welt’s correspondent Karin Retzlaff’s tour of the U.S. in 1969
prompted a lengthy series weaving satire and revelation: “From Alcatraz to Zero.” It
included several anti-racist articles and an interview with an African-American World
War II veteran in Memphis who described his experience of fighting Nazis while being
unable to eat with white U.S. G.I.’s. Back home, Retzlaff launched a targeted “solidarity
auction” of the Elvis Presley costumes and wigs, along with baseball caps and other
memorabilia she had gathered.38
Earmarking funds or donating labor on behalf of solidarity with Vietnam, Angola,
Mozambique, and the African National Congress of South Africa both predated and
paralleled the Angela Davis case. Protestant clergy and followers with leftwing views
were among those promoting such efforts. In the context of movements with mass
involvement, many in the GDR viewed Angela Davis as “someone who was clearly a
Communist but with a vibrancy, and as a symbol of a wider left, of a wider move-
ment … ” Davis’ age and obvious plight deepened her appeal to young people. “Aside
from Vietnam,” observes Victor Grossman, the Free Angela campaign was by far the
longest, most remarkable, and encompassed the most people.”39
The Free Angela movement that spread throughout the country in multiple formats
“initially did not develop in a broad sense simply out of nowhere.” Organizations from
the liberal Protestant denominations to the Communists publicized the case and
appealed for participants, spurring “a mass movement that soon became very broad,”
representing “a spontaneous and honest sympathy for the fate of Angela Davis.” As
with other endeavors assisting independence movements, the Davis case was discussed
in schools, unions, factories and other workplaces. Ginga Eichler submits that no one
was obliged to sign petitions, send cards, write poems, transmit messages, draw pictures,
design posters, go to concerts, or otherwise identify with Davis. She grants the likeli-
hood of a certain peer pressure to do so, yet submits that all actions were voluntary. It
appears petitions were put in a central place for people to sign, rather than passed
around in a school or workplace. “In many issues involving solidarity a big sheet of
paper is taped onto a door or wall for people to show their approval by signing – and
this is sent on to the defense committee or victim involved.” The lobby of an apartment
building, a wall in a factory or hospital cafeteria, or classroom would all have been suit-
able locations. Additionally, thousands sent their own letters to Davis.40
Not unlike movements on U.S. and West German campuses, college students in the
GDR set up tables, circulated leaflets, provided information, and encouraged others to
join, including foreign students studying in the GDR: the petitions include Russian,
Latvian, Hungarian, Czech, and Polish names. That such actions took place under the

38
Kurt Stand to author, March 2, 2020; Interview with Ginga Eichler, March 11, 2020; Karin Retzlaff, “Von Alcatraz bis
Zero,” 1969, clipping file courtesy Ginga Eichler.
39
Interview with Ginga Eichler, March 9, 2020; Heinz Birch to author, April 3, 2020; Kurt Stand to author, March 2, 2020;
Victor Grossman to author, March 4, 2020.
40
Heinz Birch to author, April 3, 2020; Interview with Ginga Eichler, March 9, 2020; Victor Grossman to author, March
4, 2020.
 AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 29

ostensible “Soviet model” raises cautions against over-generalization. Leipzig University

was known as “the reddest” college, with a host of solidarity activities springing from
the faculties and students of the African, Middle Eastern, and Ethnology departments.
Students sponsored their own meetings and public forums on the Davis case, at which
Ginga Eichler and others spoke. Women at a Leipzig factory told Davis that “hardly, it’s
to be expected that you’ll find fair judges … If there were such judges, you surely would
be free since a long time and you could go on teaching your students.” While
Communists promoted such contacts in a general sense, individual Leipzig party mem-
bers corresponded with Davis in handwritten missives.41
Other localities witnessed similar expressions. There were petition drives in Rostock,
Erfurt, and Jena. Thuringia’s Thomas Muntzer-Schule students sent hundreds of signa-
tures written out in pencil. Rostock fourth-graders Lilke Karsten and Ulrich Knoll drew
hand-illustrated cards to Davis in crayon. A Rostock petition drawn in magic marker
read “Sie Darf Nicht Sterben” – She Mustn’t Die. Davis received a long greeting with
signatures from glassworkers in Thuringia. From Jena, 27 high school students signed a
joint letter. Zittau, Weisbach, and Rathenow saw numerous mailings to Davis. In a letter
signed by 35, Dresden building equipment workers called Davis a victim of “American
class-justice.” Hundreds of Frankfurt-on-Oder production workers compiled a petition
for Davis, signatures askew below a typed template. From the town of
Eisenh€ uttemstadt, high schooler Sabine Schmidt pledged to Davis, “The innocent shall
not suffer.” On behalf of his school, teenager Luther Reier sent Richard Nixon a
Christmas 1971 appeal for Davis, his English as painful as it was stark: “Think on these,
which bringing death and destruction. But think you on they, which stand up for the
peace and the luck of all? Think you on the fighter for freedom and justice? … .Think
you on Angela Davis?” In addition to individual notes from members, city, factory, and
work-team SED and FDJ branches prepared resolutions and declarations.42
Given the hundreds of thousands of unique children’s communications to Davis,
which the Young Pioneers encouraged, the organization in its official capacity spoke
formally. Thus, the Pioneers of class 7B at Berlin’s Saefkow-School expressed “great
indignation” at how Davis was “condemned, though innocent, to remain behind prison
walls, at the same time appreciating her commitment “to the greatest ideals of all com-
munists in the world.” Among other projects, the Pioneers produced a poster for signa-
tures whose template was: “I, of the Thaelmann Pioneers of __________school, demand
the release of Angela Davis.” The movement in the GDR however was too big to ascribe

41
Bound portfolios of petitions, 1971-1972, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 9; Interview with Ginga Eichler, March 9,
2020; Kollektiv 8 Marz to Angela Davis, February 28, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 19; Alexander Bartzch,
Leipzig, to Angela Davis, n.d., Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder 7.
42
Petitions from Rostock and Thuringia, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 15; petitions from Erfurt and Jena, 1972,
CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 16; Lilke Karsten to Angela Davis, n.d., Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder 8; Ulrich
Knoll to Angela Davis, n.d., Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder 8; VEB Kombinat Technisches Glas Ilmenau to Angela
Davis, October 5, 1971, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 20; Jena 10th graders to Angela Davis, n.d., Alliance
Collection, Box 1, Folder 8; petitions from Zittau and Wesbach, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 19; GDR
Building Equipment Factory workers petition, November 1, 1971, Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder 3; Factory workers
petition from Frankfurt-on-Oder, 1971-1972, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 17; Sabine Schmidt to Angela Davis,
January 1, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 17; Luther Reier to Richard Nixon, December 25, 1971, Alliance
Collection, Box 1, Folder 4; FDJ, Rathenow, to Angela Davis, June 3, 1971, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 9; SED
letters to Angela Davis, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 18; Dresden FDJ to Angela Davis, 1971-1972, CPUSA
Records, Box 138, Folder 1; SED resolutions, n.d., CPUSA Records, Box 139, Folder 1.
30 D. ROSENBERG

to Communist agitation alone. As focused on Davis as Leipzig University, Humboldt

University in Berlin saluted her at a rally which accompanied a two-day symposium on
Paul Robeson. Co-sponsors included the Trade Union Federation, the Peace Council,
the German Afro-Asian Solidarity Committee, the Academy of Arts, and the university
itself. Speakers included Robeson biographer Lloyd Brown, scholar John Henrik Clarke,
and African National Congress leader Alex La Guma. Some messages to Davis from
Berliners were frank and personal. The U.S., exclaimed localite Heinz Dubbe to Davis,
was led by “gangsters.” In near-spiritual tones, poet Elly Reuter expounded her feelings
for Davis:
I, a mother, lift my voice: Angela must not die, she will live for happiness,
If the other America has a place and a voice in the Kingdom of Peace and Progress.
Hundreds of such poems appear in the documentary evidence, varying in character.
Horst Mokross began “For Angela,” “You wear eyeglasses. But truly shortsighted you
have never been.”43
Many petitions and postcards began with “Freedom for Angela Davis” on the top.
Other common headings were “We Demand Angela’s Immediate Release” and “We
Demand Angela’s Immediate Freedom.” The influence of the Pioneers and FDJ is recog-
nizable by the political wording and content of the blurbs leading off petitions and
greeting cards, but also in the enthusiasm these organizations generated. A one-liner
could only say so much, but more detailed templates above the space for signatures pre-
sented a more thorough message. A professional looking mass-produced poster might
provide the background for signatures, but would have not likely been designed by stu-
dents or factory workers. A self-drawn poster, made by an individual worker, class, or
student, would have been just as common, whether or not such words as follows were
templated: “Angela Davis is a brave fighter for peace and freedom.”44

43
Pioneers of Class 7B, Protest letter on behalf of Angela Davis, September 29, 1971, Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder
8; “Germans Celebrate Robeson’s Birth,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 22, 1971; Pioneer poster, Erich-Weinert
Oberschule, CPUSA Records, Box 262, Folder 5; Heinz Dubbe to Angela Davis, November 27, 1970, CPUSA Records,
Box 138, Folder 25; Elly Reuter to Angela Davis, November 24, 1970, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 25: Horst
Mokross, “F€ur Angela,” n.d., CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 26.
44
Petitions, 1971-1972, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folders 6, 7; Silkscreen poster, n.d., CPUSA Records, Box 262, Folder 2;
Hand-drawn poster, Class 9B, n.d., CPUSA Records, Box 262, Folder 1.
AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 31
32 D. ROSENBERG

Heinz Birch regards the feeling for Angela Davis in the GDR as something equivalent
to the fervor accompanying contemporary youthful environmental movements, even
though “the movement … ranged from kindergarten through schools and universities to
workers, farmers, and the elderly.” He credits “so many different initiatives” – letters,
posters, protest letters, drawings, and hand-made flowers” to a spirit arising “at the
grassroots.” Essentially “there were no limits” to the solidarity displays espousing “the
goal of Angela’s freedom.” The many forms of expression “had a starting point, but
were mainly created on the spot through many original ideas,” especially from youth.
School boards, committees, and teachers adapted short-term assignments and long-term
projects to the widespread identification with Davis. Students utilized the basic materials
of the arts and crafts: crayons, markers, scissors, glue, clippings, stickers, construction
paper, stenciled shapes, stickers of rainbows and hearts, with which GDR schools were
amply supplied.45
The array of solidarity artifacts deserves a brief review. Hundreds of thousands fill
the historical record. Petitions from different population sectors do not run to form,
though many contain identical or similar opening lines, hence the template “Freedom
for Angela Davis.” A class of rural children produced a group photo with “We Greet
You Angela” written on top.

The artifacts are stylistically varied, often informally written either on unlined paper
or lined notebook paper. At the school level, it was not unusual for students to draw up

45
Heinz Birch to author, March 20, 2020; Heinz Birch to author, April 3, 2020.
 AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 33

their petitions on graph paper. The first signers put their signatures in two rather neat
columns. Once the columns were full, supporters crammed their signatures all over the
place: on the line, off the line, under the line, across the line, or stuck in a corner. Ink
styles suggest that a pen was attached by string to the petitions (taped to doors and
walls), which everyone used, rather than signers employing their own writing instru-
ments. In numerous instances however, pencils were the main tool. In thousands of
cases, original sketches in pencil, charcoal, or crayon adorned petitions and greet-
ing cards.
A variety of workplace petitions indicate occupational breadth: bus and tram workers
in Rostock, workers at a musical instrument factory, scientific researchers, engineering
workers petitioning on their own letterhead, railroad workers, union branches, energy
workers, electrical power workers, and work collectives. The tendency for adults was to
prepare and circulate typed petitions with signatures below the template or blurb, in
contrast with children and youth who frequently composed from scratch. The typed
approach also typified messages from religious bodies, like the Quakers and other
Protestants. Many labor-based Angela Davis letters and petitions raised other protest
messages, aligning her cause with opposition to the war in Vietnam. Workers formed
“Angela Davis Brigades” at a number of factories. On behalf of child health care work-
ers, Gisele Boldt penned her own letter, with an original drawing of Davis holding a
key from which hung a Red Cross: above the key were the words “World Solidarity”
and below it “The First Key to Success.” Lina Johannes’ added “For the Freedom and
Independence of Black People in the United States” to her message to Davis.46
Teachers and day care workers were similarly vocal, but bent toward the less formal
style, taking advantage of the arts and crafts supplies available to them. Their creativity
was often matched at workplaces where women formed a majority, or had formed clubs
or groups: in addition to resolutions, some made posters to be signed. The “Educators
and Mothers of the Children at the Nursery School” of a textile plant in Olbersdorf
wrote their petition in marker, and signed in green, brown, yellow, and red markers.
This contrasted with hundreds of more standardized petitions from autoworkers, albeit
signed by thousands. Party and FDJ units within factories often made their own solidar-
ity arrangements, aside from comprehensive workforce statements.47
While student-faculty Angela Davis committees functioned on college campuses, high
school students practiced their own civic engagement. The Free German Youth groups
in the schools promoted the cause of Angela Davis, set up tables where students could

46
Petition from bus and tram workers, Rostock, 1971-1972, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 16; Petition from musical
instrument factory, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 19; Petition from research institute, n.d., CPUSA Records,
Box 138, Folder 26; Miscellaneous petitions, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 139, Folder 1; Resolutions from workplaces,
n.d., CPUSA Records, Box 139, Folder 8; Society of Quakers to Committee to Free Angela Davis, June 6, 1971, CPUSA
Records, Box 137, Folder 13; Betriebsgruppe VEB Federnwerk Zittau protest resolution, February 17, 1972; Angela
Davis Brigade Hydrogeologie Nordhausen to Angela Davis, March 7, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 139, Folder 1; Textile
factory workers to Angela Davis, February 8, 1972, February 8, 1972; Gisele Boldt to Angela Davis, message from child
health care workers, n.d., CPUSA Records, Box 139, Folder 1; Lina Johannes to Angela Davis, February 25, 1972,
CPUSA Records, Box 139, Folder 1.
47
Kollektiv der Kindergarten Jungsternsteig to Angela Davis, December 19, 1971; Protest Resolution, Anne Frank
Kollektiv der Kindertageskrippe, to Angela Davis, n.d., CPUSA Records, Box 139, Folder 9; Frauen der Frauengruppe
Rochlitz der VKSK Protest Resolution, October 20, 1971, CPUSA Records, Box 139, Folder 9; Educators and Mothers of
the Children of the Nursery School of Textil Verpackung, n.d., CPUSA Records, Box 139, Folder 9; Petitions from
autoworkers, CPUSA Records, Box 139, Folder 7; FDJ factory workers to Angela Davis, December 22, 1970, Alliance
Collection, Box 1, Folder 1.
34 D. ROSENBERG

sign petitions, and produced some of the earliest template postcards. Yet the courses of
action taken by high schoolers varied considerably. The Davis campaign was an oppor-
tunity for secondary school artists, whose sketches and paintings were naturally more
developed than those at the elementary school level. It appears that petitions were on
the walls or doors of every classroom: typed or handwritten headings indicate the title
of the class being taken by the signers at this or that time of day: French, English, sten-
ography, Machine Shop, English I, or English III. Drama students sent their own peti-
tions. Secondary school students were responsible for the more imaginative posters,
some of which were duplicated and shared in different schools. Short messages were the
rule in this regard, with stark illustrations, words written in marker: “She Mustn’t Die!”
Or the high school-generated portrait of Davis, with stenciled words below: “Schwarze
Schwester Angela” – “Black Sister Angela.” Elementary school children would make a
template of it, adding a fold-out with flowers inside.48
Employing cutouts of flowers onto home-made greeting cards belonged to a specific
children’s effort known as “roses for Angela,” which often specified “one million roses”
or “one thousand.” The rose-themed messages arrived in the US in large mail bundles.
Fifty years later, the Dresden Arts Collection devoted an exhibition of a wide array of
the cards titled “1 Million Roses for Angela Davis.” The New York Times notes: “The
artifacts and art on view in ‘1 Million Roses’ evoke thoughts and emotions that are pro-
found and painful, but also promising.”49

48
Photo of FDJ members petitioning at a table in a high school, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 7; Dresden FDJ,
postcards to Angela Davis, 1971-1972, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 1; High school petitions, 1971-1972, CPUSA
Records, Box 137, Folder 12; Petition from a high school drama class, 1971-1972, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 3;
high school petitions, 1971-1972, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 15 and 16; greeting card, Schwarze Schwester
Angela, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder18.
49
Kathleen Reinhardt interview with Catrin Lorch, “It Was Perfect,” S€uddeutsche Zeitung, July 12, 2020; Kimberly Bradley,
New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/26/arts/design/angela-davis-exhibition-dresden.html?referringSource=
articleShare October 27, 2020, Accessed October 27, 2020.
 AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 35

A tenth grade class in Dillstadt devised their own petition for Davis’ bail, signed by
44 students. From “the teenage students of the Schiller School in Weimar” came the
vow to “demand Angela’s freedom and again” and the pledge, “We won’t end our strug-
gle to set her free.” The immensity of expression is incalculable. Original artwork high-
lighted the large-size petition designed at the Theo-Neubauer-Oberschule in the town of
Bad Sazungen, with appeals surrounding the margins: “Stay Watchful for Angela,” “Save
Angela Davis,” “Angela Davis is in extreme danger,” “We need your signature,” the
36 D. ROSENBERG

entire project mounted on poster-board with hundreds of signatures. Bernd Leipert, a

Dresden teenager studying English, was puzzled over the stance of U.S. authorities
toward Davis: “Does the government think it can make quiet all these fighters? I believe
that would be a big mistake.” High school cards and petitions were signed in nearly
uncontrollable form. Although the pages were commonly unlined, the first few signers
wrote straight across. But the hundreds to follow descended into near-bedlam, signa-
tures at every conceivable angle. The effect was overwhelming when students, as at
Theo-Neubauer-Obserschule, came up with a petition three feet wide and four
feet long.50
Elementary school children showed that they were as capable as their secondary
school elders in compressing their names onto petitions, long or short. Perhaps the
teenagers learned the technique from the children. The all-penciled petition by fifth-
graders at Grete-Unrein-Schule serves as a model: there are no empty spaces. Woe unto
the pupil who arrived late to the petition on the wall, after the others had afforded
themselves the luxury of spacing. Occasionally grammar school children belonging to
the same family would attempt to sign the same petition, even though they were in dif-
ferent grades and classrooms. Thus the Fleckstein children signed eight of the 80 signa-
tures in one school. Children decorated petitions with their own drawings or newspaper
clippings. Crayoned roses were a constant, around simple phrases: “We are on your
side!” or “We Stand by Your Side!” Thus “1,000 Roses for Angela” also became a slogan
and was represented in every conceivable visual format. Roses were drawn to blot out
the bars of Davis’ prison cell. But clearly the messaged petition, signed by 60, “We
demand the immediate release of the American patriot Angela Davis” was more likely
to have been written by a teacher or Young Pioneers leader. School children’s imagina-
tions however ran wild, facilitated by abundant art tools. They sent Davis a barrage of
birthday cards during her incarceration. Many of these were part of a preprinted series,
with “Freedom for Angela!” within the text. Others came straight off the worktable, scis-
sors and paste, marker and cutout shapes, accompanied by poems or lyrics.51
Individual children made greeting cards to Davis out of construction paper, replete
with swirls and hearts, and the simplest of messages, some templated, others not. Hence
Erika Augustat, Gunther Clemens and Regina Viebranz wrote separate cards with the
identical words “I demand freedom for Angela Davis.” Yet other children from the
same school used different wording. International Women’s Day 1972 brought out a
round of messages with more personal wording. Marita Deichmann sent hers to Davis

50
Petition from Dillstadt high school students, n.d., Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder 5; Petition from the Schiller School,
Weimar, September 21, 1971, Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder 5; Poster/petition from Theo Neubauer-Oberschule,
Bad Salzungen (Thuringia), n.d., CPUSA Records, Box 263, Folder 4; Bernd Leipert to New York Committee to Free
Angela Davis, February 21, 1971, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 13; student petitions, letters, and cards, n.d., CPUSA
Records, Box 138, Folder 26; Poster/petition from Theo Neubauer-Obverschule, Bad Salzungen (Thuringia), n.d., CPUSA
Records, Box 263, Folder 4.
51
Petition from fifth-graders, Grete-Unrein-Schule, n.d., Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder 8; children’s petitions, 1971-
1972, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 12; Handmade greeting card from 7th graders, “We Stand By Your Side,” n.d.,
Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder 5; Petition including eight members of the Fleckstein family, n.d., Alliance Collection,
Box 1, Folder 8; “1,000 Roses for Angela,” 1971-1972, CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 13; bound petitions, 1971-1972,
CPUSA Records, Box 137, Folder 11; birthday cards to Angela Davis on her 28th birthday, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box
138, Folder 5;birthday cards to Angela Davis, 1971, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 25; Class 5E, “We wish you a
happy 27th birthday, 1971, CPUSA Records, Box 263, Folder 5; birthday card from fourth-graders, n.d., Alliance
Collection, Box 1, Folder 7.
 AMERICAN COMMUNIST HISTORY 37

with an artistic pattern made by scissors, an evident devotion of time. Others at her
school signed off, “Your friend.” Cards made from scratch occasionally simply conveyed
affection to Davis, with no other message. Both Lilke Karsten and Ulrich Knoll, Rostock
fourth-graders, followed this course of action in a m
elange of crayons.52
Davis received thousands of such messages. She thanked the “millions of comrades,
our sisters and brothers, who do not separate the task of building socialism from that
of fighting the ugly manifestations of imperialism wherever they show their face.” She
emphasized her gratitude to “the school children” to whom her “few words could never
completely capture my feelings.” And she vowed to “assist our sisters and brothers in
the GDR” with a “vigorous defense of the countries which have reached the stage of
history where justice and equality prevail.”53
Though not in its entirety, the worldwide campaign to free Angela Davis was very
much a youth movement. Before concluding, one may consider the prospect of how
young people can be encouraged, if not manipulated, by societal norms and pressures,
school and authorities, parents and peers. Peaceful socially responsible communities
ideally inculcate or promote principles, including and beyond the basic requirements of
social life: to listen, share, speak up, be proud, to cooperate and be tolerant; to empa-
thize and be sensitive to the situations of others. In general, that is: but in particular,
societies and authorities teach the norms of social life according to their leading forces
and influences, inducing or limiting debate and challenge accordingly.
History, policy, and power inform the value system of police departments in the
United States toward African-Americans, leading to hostility, insensitivity, and murder:
imagine if society and authority emphasized equality, anti-racism, and human accept-
ance instead. Only twenty-five years separated the children’s component of the GDR’s
Free Angela movement from the values of a different Germany.
German children’s books in Nazi times taught hatred and the sanctity of war. Boards
of education structured curricula and teacher training accordingly. The believability of
1938s notorious short story “The Poisonous Mushroom” – the Jew – speaks to a certain
required skill in raising young folks to be killers: “Yes, my child! Just as a single poison-
ous mushroom can kill a whole family, so a solitary Jew can destroy a whole village, a
whole city, even an entire Volk.” [people]. Pre-World War II second grade, third grade,
fourth and fifth grade art assignments, with all the school supplies later used so differ-
ently by a later generation of German students to help Free Angela Davis, asked pupils
to draw corpses, sketch burning factories, and portray air raid: good preparation for a
holocaust yet to come.
But thus could be raised a special kind of young generation, a racist youth: “A vio-
lently active, dominating, intrepid, brutal youth—that is what I am after. Youth must be
all those things. It must be indifferent to pain. There must be no weakness or

52
Erika Augustat to Angela Davis, n.d., Gunter Clemens to Angela Davis, n.d., Regina Viebranz to Angela Davis, n.d.,
Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder 2; “Stephan” to Angela Davis, n.d., Gerlinde Appelhagen to Angela Davis, Alliance
Collection, Box 1, Folder 2; Marita Deichmann to Angela Davis, March 8, 1972, Rita Smyk to Angela Davis, March 8,
1972, Christine Modrack to Angela Davis, March 8, 1972, Ramona Klingbeil to Angela Davis, March 8, 1972, Peter
Schumann to Angela Davis, March 8, 1972, CPUSA Records, Box 138, Folder 1; Lilke Karsten to Angela Davis, n.d.,,
Ulrich Knoll to Angela Davis, n.d., Alliance Collection, Box 1, Folder 8.
53
Angela Davis to Klaus Steiniger, April 26, 1972, in Steiniger, Angela Davis: Eine Frau schreibt Geschichte, Berlin, 2010,
photo section.
38 D. ROSENBERG

tenderness in it.” How different from the encouragement of solidarity expressed during
the Angela Davis campaign not only in the GDR but in the United States, France, Italy,
Soviet Union, Cuba, Uruguay, and elsewhere. Even if conveyed with enlightenment and
human solidarity in mind, there is always the risk of being too doctrinaire and of rais-
ing trained seals, especially in societies where humane ideas are conveyed amidst com-
mander-administer structures. At issue is whether youth in socialist countries were
pressured to petition, make posters or sign cards. At least, the evidence of the Davis
campaigns in Cuba and the GDR suggests that the cookie-cutter model by which minds
were cloned and automatons created did not fit. Instead, it suggests a degree of social
initiative and agency among those who participated. Nevertheless, the global solidarity
experience during the time of Davis’ incarceration suggests that nurturing the ethos of
sympathy for and identification with the conditions of others can draw out the best in
people. This in fact applies to all generations.54

54
Ernst Hiemer, Der Giftplitz (The Poisonous Mushroom), Nurnburg, 1938; Erika Mann, School for Barbarians, New York,
1938; Hermann Rauschning, Voice of Destruction: Conversations with Hitler, NY, 1940, 251-252.
Copyright of American Communist History is the property of Routledge and its content may
not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's
express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for
individual use.