Her parents had many Communist friends, and this influence prompted young Angela to join a youth Communist group. At age 15, Angela Davis left Birmingham to attend Elizabeth Irwin School in New York City. Unlike the segregated schools she attended in Alabama with inferior resources and curriculum, Irwin High provided Angela with new politically aggressive views. After completing high school, Angela Davis attended Brandeis University in Massachusetts from 1961-1965, where she would eventually graduate with honors. In 1963, Angela Davis's political involvement intensified, when four girls whom Davis knew while she was in Birmingham were killed in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham. .
In 1965, Davis flew to Frankfurt, Germany to begin her doctoral studies in philosophy at Johann Wolfgang von Goethe University. However in 1967, Davis decided that it was in her best interest to return to the United States, because of the growing racial conflict. When she returned to the United States, she enrolled in the University of California at San Diego, where she would obtain a master's degree in philosophy in 1969. In graduate school, Angela became very active in the political arena. During a workshop sponsored by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), she met Kendra and Frank Alexander, who were both active members of SNCC, the Black Panther Party, and the Communist Party. Angela Davis was so intrigued by the political work of the Alexanders"; she moved to Los Angeles to join the Alexanders" in their work and joined the Communist Party in 1968.
While in Los Angeles, Davis was hired to teach philosophy at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), in 1969. Almost immediately, Davis's courses became very popular. However, due to her involvement with the Communist Party and the Black Panther Party, she was fired by the state board of regents at the request of Gov.