Michael DeMond Davis
*Michael DeMond Davis was born on this date in 1939. He was a Black journalist and a pioneer in African American journalism, opening the doors for many African American writers. Michael Davis was born in Washington, D.C., the son of John P. Davis and Marguerite DeMond Davis, and grew up in a black middle class in Washington, D.C., and New York City.
As a Morehouse College student member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), he worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr. and led parts of the student sit-in movement. He was arrested many times in Atlanta's bus stations and department stores. The Atlanta Constitution hired Davis as the paper's first African American reporter.
Davis went on to Vietnam as the Baltimore 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. 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." When he returned home, he joined the Baltimore Sun.
He was a San Diego Union staff member, covering 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 received several Front-Page Awards from the American Newspaper Guild. The NAACP gave him an award for his coverage of Vietnam. In 1992, Davis authored Black American Women in Olympic Track and Field and co-authored a Thurgood Marshall biography. Michael DeMond Davis died on November 13, 2003.
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