The morning breaks

On August 7, 1970, a revolt by Black prisoners in a Marin County courthouse stunned the nation. In its aftermath, Angela Davis, an African American activist-scholar, who had campaigned vigorously for prisoners' rights, was placed on the FBI's "ten most wanted list." Captured in New York City two months later, she was charged with murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy. Her trial, chronicled in this "compelling tale" (Publisher's Weekly), brought strong public indictment.

The Morning Breaks is a riveting firsthand account of Davis's ordeal and her ultimate triumph written by an activist in the student, civil rights, and anti-war movements who was intimately involved in the struggle for her release.

For this edition, Bettina Aptheker has provided an introduction that revisits crucial events of the late 1960s and early 1970s and puts Davis's case into the context of that time and our own - from the killings at Kent State and Jackson State and the persecutions and prosecutions of members of the Black Panther Party to the politics of the prison system today.