The Making of a State-Sponsored Heroine: Angela Davis, African Americans, and the Promise of the Soviet Union

Abstract

This article uses Angela Davis' 1972 visit to the Soviet Union to explore the continued connections between the Soviet Union and African Americans. Davis was made famous in the Soviet Union because of her victimhood and her pro-Soviet outlook. Soviet support for her cause combined with her eyewitness testimony that the Soviet Union had abolished racism provided Soviet propaganda with ample opportunities to undercut American criticism of the Soviet Union, while inspiring domestic Soviet youth to be more faithful and proud of their home country. Yet, while Davis was used by the Soviet Union and its propaganda machine, she also made use of her Soviet connections and experience. The USSR, as it had for the Scottsboro Boys in the past, advocated for Davis and rallied leftists around the world to her cause. The Soviet Union, by turning her into a state-sponsored heroine, provided her with a major platform that eventually extended far beyond the Soviet Union. Moreover, in the Soviet Union, she found inspiration. There, as she witnessed personally during her 1972 visit, she believed she encountered a society free of racism, prejudice and strife that she knew so well at home.