U.S. Communist Party official Angela Davis said Friday events in the Soviet Union had hurt the socialist cause.
She arrived for a two-week tour of South Africa as a guest of the African National Congress and its ally, the South African Communist Party.Davis, a member of the U.S. Communist Party's central committee, told a news conference the possible disintegration of the Soviet Union was "an extremely difficult moment, and a sad one, for people who have fought for socialism for decades."
She called the ANC, South Africa's largest black opposition movement, a "beacon of light" for liberation movements throughout the world.
Davis became a national figure in 1969 when University of California officials vetoed her appointment to the University of California-Los Angeles faculty because of her communist beliefs.
She now teaches philosophy and women's studies at San Francisco State University.