Profile

A political activist, scholar, and author, she was an active member of both the Communist Party USA and the Black Panther Party. Her academic work spans feminism, African American studies, critical theory, popular music culture and social consciousness, as well as the philosophy of punishment—particularly women’s jails and prisons. She is a founding member of Critical Resistance - an organization committed to dismantling the prison-industrial complex. Her life includes a period of imprisonment and a high-profile trial in the early 1970s and later, she built a distinguished academic career at the University of California, Santa Cruz, while continuing her activism through writing and public lectures. Amongst her most prominent publications are Women, Race, & Class (1981) and Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003).