Michael DeMond Davis


Michael DeMond Davis was a Pulitzer prize-nominated journalist and a pioneer in African-American journalism, opening the doors for many African-American writers. He authored Black American Women in Olympic Track and Field and co-authored the Thurgood Marshall biography.

Early life

Born in Washington, D.C., the son of John P. Davis and Marguerite DeMond Davis, Mike D. Davis grew up in the bosom of the dignified black middle class of Washington D.C. and New York City. His father, John P. Davis was a graduate of Harvard Law School and his mother was a graduate of Syracuse University. John P. Davis became prominent for his work with the Joint Committee on National Recovery and the founding of the National Negro Congress in 1935. He went on to found Our World magazine in 1946, a full-size, nationally-distributed magazine edited for African-American readers. He also published the American Negro Reference book, covering virtually every aspect of African-American life, present and past. Mike Davis was the grandson of Dr. William Henry Davis and the Reverend Abraham Lincoln DeMond
In 1943, the first lawsuit challenging segregated schools in Washington, D.C., was brought in Michael D. Davis's name by his father, John P. Davis. The Washington Star was highly critical of an African-American lawyer legally challenging the District's Dual school system when the principal of Noyes School refused to admit Mike Davis at five years of age, stating that the District citizens had long accepted separate schools for blacks and whites and that the suit brought by John P. Davis would cause even deeper divisions in the nation's capital.
The U.S. Congress, in response to John P. Davis's suit, appropriated federal funds to construct the Lucy D. Slowe elementary school directly across the street from his Brookland home in the neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Davis attended the Fieldston school in New York, New York.
As a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and was a leader of the student sit-in movement. He was arrested many times in Atlanta's bus stations and department stores.

Journalism

, publisher of the Atlanta Constitution, hired Davis as the paper's first African-American reporter. McGill became his mentor and friend.
Davis went on to Vietnam as the Afro-American Newspapers war correspondent. During his 18 months in Vietnam, he reported on combat activities of black service people in the Afro's 13-state circulation area. When he returned home, he joined the Baltimore Sun. He was a staff member of the San Diego Union, where he covered Governor Jerry Brown, the now-defunct Washington Star, an editor of NBC television news in Washington, D.C., and a reporter for the Washington Times.
His work has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and he received several Front Page Awards from the American Newspaper Guild. The NAACP gave him an award for his coverage of Vietnam. Davis authored Black American Women in Olympic Track and Field.

Vietnam Foreign News Correspondent

From July to November 1967, Davis published over 100 articles as the Vietnam War correspondent for the Baltimore Afro-American in the column called the "Vietnam Notebook".

Selected articles