SAN DIEGO (CBS 8) — Author and activist Angela Davis spoke to a sold-out crowd at Southwestern College Wednesday about tough social issues including race, education and incarceration.
A long line of students and professors, and the community rushed to get a seat for Dr. Angela Davis' lecture.
Davis was once on the FBI's most wanted list. Since the '60s she has been known as a leading social injustice activist and has written several books.
Davis was a member of the Black Panther group; she is a feminist and the founder of Critical Resistance which works to abolish the prison industrial complex.
The 73-year-old activist has been a critic of racism in the criminal justice system and wants to dedicate more resources to the prisons rather than educational institutions.
She most recently spoke at the Women's March in Washington, D.C.
Wednesday a professor of reading, who also works in the local jails and prisons, called Dr. Davis a hero.
"When some of us struggle to try to make things right, when we see injustice and sometimes we feel that is going against us - for us it really helps us to see that someone made it and we shouldn't give up this fight for positive cause," said Southwestern professor Sylvia Garcia-Navarrete.
Davis started her talk around 6 p.m. was expected to speak for about two hours. She is a Professor Emeritus at the Unversity of Santa Cruz and earned her Masters at UC San Diego.