David McReynolds (1929 - ). Political activist, and first gay presidential candidate.

b. October 25, 1929

American democratic socialist and pacifist activist who described himself as "a peace movement bureaucrat" during his 40-year career with Liberation magazine and the War Resisters League. He was the first openly gay man to run for President of the United States.

Born in Los Angeles, in 1951 he joined the Socialist Party of America (SPA) and in 1953 he graduated from UCLA with a degree in political science. Between 1957 and 1960, McReynolds worked for the editorial board of the left-wing magazine Liberation. McReynolds is openly gay and wrote his first article about living as a gay man in 1969.

He was staunchly anti-war and a draft resister, and in 1960 joined the staff of the War Resisters League (WRL), where he remained until his retirement in 1999. On November 6, 1965, he was one of five men who publicly burned their draft cards at an anti-war demonstration at Union Square in New York.

In his political career, McReynolds ran for Congress from Lower Manhattan twice and for President twice. In 1958 he ran as a write-in SPA candidate and then in 1968 as a Peace and Freedom Party candidate for Congress in the 19th district.  In 1980, he ran for President of the United States as the SPUSA candidate, and again for President as the SPUSA candidate in 2000. In both 1980 and 2000, McReynolds received the endorsement and ballot line of the Liberty Union Party in Vermont. In 2004, he ran on the Green Party ticket for the New York Senate, running an anti-war campaign against Democratic incumbent Chuck Schumer. 

Angela Davis, Civil Rights Activist

b. January 26, 1944

Revolution is a serious thing, the most serious thing about a revolutionary's life. When one commits oneself to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime.

A revolutionary of unequivocal prowess, Angela Davis has devoted her life to combating racism and sexism. Despite acrimonious attempts by the U.S. government to suppress her political influence, Davis has never wavered in her commitment towards global social justice.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1944, Davis grew up under the oppression of Jim Crow laws. Her family lived in an integrated neighborhood plagued by racial conflict. Bombings by the Ku Klux Klan were so common that the neighborhood was called "Dynamite Hill." From an early age, Davis encountered political activism. Her mother was a civil rights campaigner and a member of the NAACP.

Davis was a precocious child who possessed an acute awareness of her social status as an African-American woman. By the age of fourteen, she had aligned herself with socialist and communist politics, joining the communist youth organization, Advance.

In 1962, Davis landed a full scholarship to Brandeis University, where she studied French and philosophy. In 1969, after receiving her master's degree from the University of California, San Diego and Ph.D. in Philosophy from Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, Davis began teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles. UCLA terminated her position based on her involvement in the Communist Party USA. The university eventually reinstated her professorship following enormous pressure from national and international supporters.

In 1970, Davis was charged with conspiracy, kidnapping, and homicide after a shotgun registered in her name was used in a courthouse hostage shooting linked to the Black Panther Party. Fearing for her life, Davis went underground, becoming the third woman on the FBI's Most Wanted List. The Bureau eventually captured her. She was brought to trial in one of the most publicized criminal hearings of the century. In 1972, an all-white jury found Davis not guilty on all charges.

Davis writes and lectures on gender and race issues and remains on the faculty at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is a co-founder of Critical Resistance, a national grass-roots organization addressing reform of the "prison-industrial complex."

Bibliography
“Articles about and by Angela Davis.” The New York Times Archives. July 3, 2007
“Interview with Angela Davis.” PBS: Frontline. July 3, 2007
Aptheker, Bettina. The Morning Breaks: The Trial of Angela Davis. Cornell University Press, 1999
James, Joy. The Angela Y. Davis Reader. Blackwell Publishing Limited. 1998
Selected Works
Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire (2005)
Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974)
Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)
Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday (1999)
Frame Up: The Opening Defense Statement Made (1972)
If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance (1971)
Violence Against Women and the Ongoing Challenge to Racism (1985)
Women, Culture and Politics (1989)
Women, Race and Class (1981)