Kamala Harris isn’t the first black woman to run for US vice president

Yesterday’s (11 August 2020) announcement that US Senator Kamala Harris, former California Attorney General, would be Joe Biden’s running mate in November led many to label her the first black woman for the US vice presidency. But that’s not true. There have been a number of African-American presidential and vice-presidential candidates in the past. One of the most famous is US communist and black liberation fighter, Angela Davis, who ran on the Communist Party ticket in 1980. Here we reproduce a short biography of her life and contribution to the struggle originally compiled for the YCL’s 2019 International Women’s Day Series.