Fania Davis, Ph.D., J.D.

Biography

Fania E. Davis is  an author, educator, restorative justice practitioner and long-time social justice activist and civil rights trial attorney with a PhD in Indigenous Knowledge. Coming of age in Birmingham, Alabama during the social ferment of the civil rights era, the murder of two close childhood friends in the 1963 Sunday School bombing crystallized within Fania a passionate commitment to social transformation. For the next decades, she was active in the Civil Rights, Black liberation, Women's, Prisoners', Peace, Anti-racial violence and Anti-apartheid movements. She has taught Indigenous Peacemaking and Indigenous Law at the graduate level. Studying with indigenous healers, particularly African, catalyzed Fania’s search for a healing justice. Founding Director Emerita of Restorative Justice of Oakland Youth (RJOY), her numerous honors include the Ubuntu award for service to humanity, the Maloney Award for excellence in Youth Restorative Justice, World Trust's Healing Justice award, the Tikkun (Repair the World) award, the Ella Baker Jo Baker Award, the Bioneers’ Changemaker Award, the LaFarge Social Justice Award, and the Ebony POWER 100 award.  The Los Angeles Times named her a New Civil Rights Leader of the 21st Century.

Fania's latest publication is The Little Book of Race and Restorative Justice: Black Lives, Healing and U.S. Social Transformation.