Angela made such an impression on Russian dissident and Nobel Laureat Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn that he went out of his way to mention her in a speech he delivered to the AFL-CIO on July 9, 1975 in New York City. This is how he described the crusade to free Angela and her efforts on behalf of other political dissidents:
There's a certain woman here named Angela Davis. I don't know if you are familiar with her in this country, but in our country, literally, for an entire year, we heard of nothing at all except Angela Davis. There was only Angela Davis in the whole world and she was suffering. We had our ears stuffed with Angela Davis. Little children in school were told to sign petitions in defense of Angela Davis. Little boys and girls, eight and nine years old, were asked to do this. She was set free, as you know. Although she didn't have too difficult a time in this country's jails, she came to recuperate in Soviet resorts. Some Soviet dissidents--but more important, a group of Czech dissidents--addressed an appeal to her: `Comrade Davis, you were in prison. You know how unpleasant it is to sit in prison, especially when you consider yourself innocent. You have such great authority now. Could you help our Czech prisoners? Could you stand up for those people in Czechoslovakia who are being persecuted by the state?' Angela Davis answered: `They deserve what they get. Let them remain in prison.' That is the face of Communism. That is the heart of Communism for you. (Solzhenitsyn's Warning to the West. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976, pp. 60-1 ).
Full text of an article on Angela Davis, which includes quotations from the New York Times