In a sense the quest for the emancipation of black people in the U.S. has always been a quest for economic liberation which means to a certain extent that the rise of black middle class would be inevitable.

On April 16 2009 Angela Davis was the keynote speaker at the University of Virginia Carter G. University of Wisconsin – Madison Madison WI 2000. Angela Davis: Soul and Soledad.

She was twice a candidate for Vice President on the Communist Party USA ticket during the 1980s. She was tried and acquitted of suspected involvement in the Soledad brothers' August 1970 abduction and murder of Judge Harold Haley in Marin County California.