Michael DeMond Davis

Michael DeMond Davis (January 1939 to November 13, 2003) was an award winning journalist who co-authored the Thurgood Marshall Biography. He was a pioneer in African American jounralism, opening the doors for many African-American writers.
Early Life He was 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 New York. His father, John P. Davis was a graduate of Harvard Law School and his mother , Marguerite DeMond 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 the Washington, D.C was brought in Michael D. Davis's name by his father, John P. Davis. The Washington Star was sharply 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 the age of 5-years old. The Washington Star paper said 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. Later that year the family moved to New York City and Mike attended the Fieldston school. As a student at Morehouse Collegein Atlanta, Georgia and a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 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. Michael Davis married Dollie "Troy" Smith and had four children, Michelle DeMond Davis, Derwin Andrea Davis, Rebecca Hope Davis and Rochelle Harmony Davis. Ralph McGill, publisher of theAtlanta Constitution hired Davis as the paper's first African American reporter. Ralph McGill became his mentor and his friend. Davis went on to Vietnam as the Afro-American Newspapers war correspondent. During the 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 Papers. He was a staff member of the San Diego Union, where he covered Governor Jerry Brown, the now-defunct Washington Star, and was an editor of NBC television news in Washington, D.C. 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.