Songfacts®:

• Written by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, this song was written for Angela Davis, who John and Yoko considered a political prisoner. Angela Yvonne Davis came from a fairly privileged background, albeit in the racially segregated Birmingham, Alabama.
  
  Embracing communism, she traveled widely in Europe, becoming fluent in French. In January 1970, Soledad Prison inmate George Jackson was charged along with two others with the murder of a prison guard. On August 7, Jackson's younger brother Jonathan entered the Marin County courthouse armed to the teeth, took a judge hostage, and freed three black prisoners. The resulting shootout left Jackson, the judge and two others dead. The guns Jonathan Jackson used were owned by Angela Davis, who fled the state. While on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list, she was arrested in New York City, and at her trial she was acquitted by an all-white jury.
  
  Angela, they put you in prison
  Angela, they shot down your man
  
  George Jackson was gunned down by prison guards in what was reported as an escape attempt, which prompted Bob Dylan to write a song about him.
  
  After her acquittal, Angela Davis wrote a series of books about race, class, women and the prison industrial-complex, and became Professor of the History of Human Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Lennon of course would not live to see this, but he would undoubtedly have been pleased.
• "Angela" is far from the only song about Angela Davis; "Sweet Black Angel" by the Rolling Stones is also about her. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2
• In 1970, Soledad Brother, a collection of George Jackson's prison letters written from 1964-1970, was released. The reprint of the introduction explains that in 1960, Jackson was accused of stealing $70 from a gas station. On the advice of his court-appointed lawyer, Jackson pled guilty and received a sentence of one year to life. During this time, he became a prolific writer.