John P. Davis

The most extensive overview of Davis' life is by Hilmar Jenson in an edition of his writings, John Preston Davis, The Forgotten Civil Rights (1996). Much of the scholarly writing about Davis focuses on his experiences in the National Negro Congress.

In 1964, Davis served as editor of special publications for the Phelps-Stokes Fund. He compiled in a single volume a reliable summary on the main aspects of Negro life in America, presenting it with historical depth to provide the reader with a true perspective. The American Negro Reference Book covered virtually every aspect of African-American life, present and past.

Our World portrayed a thriving black America; its covers featured entertainers such as Lena Horne, Marian Anderson, Harry Belafonte, Eartha Kitt, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Nat King Cole. The magazine ceased publication in 1957.

In 1946, he founded Our World magazine, a full-size, nationally distributed publication for African-American readers. He also published the American Negro Reference Book, covering virtually every aspect of African-American life, present and past.

After World War II, in 1946 Davis was founding publisher of Our World magazine, a full-size, nationally distributed magazine to appeal to African-American readers. Its first issue, with singer-actress Lena Horne on the cover, appeared on the nation's newsstands in April 1946. Our World was a premier publication, covering contemporary topics from black history to sports and entertainment, with regular articles on health, fashion, politics and social awareness. It was based in New York City, the publishing capital of the country.

In 1943, Davis brought the first lawsuit challenging segregated schools in Washington, D.C., in the name of his five-year-old son Michael D. Davis, who was rejected from his neighborhood's Noyes School, a white elementary school. The Washington Star newspaper criticized the African-American lawyer for legally challenging the District's dual segregated school system after the principal of Noyes School refused to admit Mike Davis. The Washington Star said that District citizens had long accepted separate schools for blacks and whites, and that the suit brought by John P. Davis would cause deeper racial divisions in the nation's capital.

Their efforts led to the establishment of the Joint Committee on National Recovery (JCNR), a group of 26 national groups, including the YWCA, National Urban League (NUL), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Davis became Executive Secretary of the JCNR, a position he held until 1936, serving as a legislative lobbyist. The committee lobbied for fair inclusion of African Americans in government-sponsored programs. It publicized incidents and patterns of racial discrimination. The implementation of a National Recovery Program promised to have immediate and long-term consequences for African Americans. While Davis and Weaver worked, more established African-American leaders deliberated about how to respond to the flurry of New Deal legislation.

In May 1935, a conference on the economic status of the Negro was held at Howard University in Washington, D.C., out of which emerged a major civil rights coalition that was active in the late 1930s and 1940s: the National Negro Congress (NNC)—whose sponsors included Davis, Ralph J. Bunche and Alain Locke of Howard University, A. Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, James Ford of the Communist Party USA, Lester Granger and Elmer Carter of the Urban League, and Charles Hamilton Houston of the NAACP. Davis was one of the original founders; he served as Executive Secretary until 1942.

In the summer of 1933, John P. Davis, a law graduate, and Robert C. Weaver, a doctoral student at Harvard, acted to ensure that African-American interests were represented in government programs. The two men returned to Washington, D.C. and established an office on Capitol Hill, where they fought successfully against the racial wage differential and for the integration of Negro families into the program of the Homestead Subsistence Division in the first recovery program.

The largest collection of Davis' papers is in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. Insight into Davis' political and social views can be found in his own writings. The Papers of the National Negro Congress reproduces all of the organization’s records that are housed at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, including the voluminous working files of Davis and successive executive secretaries of the National Negro Congress. Beginning with papers from 1933 that predate the formation of the National Negro Congress, the wide-ranging collection documents Davis’ involvement in the Negro Industrial League. It includes the "Report Files" of Davis’ interest in the "Negro problem."

Davis married Marguerite DeMond, the daughter of Reverend Abraham Lincoln DeMond and Lula Watkins (Patterson) DeMond. Marguerite had attended Avery Normal Institute in Charleston, South Carolina, operated by the American Missionary Association and the Congregationalist Church. Even before the Civil War, Avery Normal Institute's racially integrated faculty was providing quality educations for African Americans. She attended Syracuse University in 1931 and came to Washington, D.C., with her mother in 1932, after the death of her father.

Davis toured Europe with the Bates College debating team. He was among the first African-American men to be sent overseas under the auspices of the American University Union to engage in international debate; his team from Bates met and defeated Cambridge University. While an undergraduate at Bates College, Davis was nominated for a Rhodes scholarship. He contributed short stories to The Crisis, official magazine of the NAACP, and Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, published by the National Urban League. His short story "The Overcoat" was a prize-winner in Opportunity's 1926–27 literary contest.

Davis had a fellowship to Harvard University from 1926 to 1927, and earned his master's degree in Journalism. He left Harvard to join the staff of Fisk University, a historically black college in Nashville, where he served as Director of Publicity from (1927 to 1928). He returned to Harvard University and earned an LLB degree from Harvard Law School in 1933.

Davis attended segregated schools in Washington, D.C., graduating from the elite Dunbar High School, which stressed an academic curriculum. In 1922, he enrolled in Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. He graduated in 1926, earning an A.B. and double honors in English and Psychology. At Bates, he was president of Delta Sigma Rho, an honorary debating fraternity, and editor of the student publication The Bobcat. He enlisted the aid of Bates trustee Louis B. Costello, when Delta Sigma Rho's national council denied him membership because of his race.

John P. Davis was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Dr. William Henry Davis and Julia Davis. His father was a graduate of Howard University and served as principal of Armstrong High School. During World War I, Dr. Davis was appointed as Secretary to Dr. Emmett Jay Scott, Special Assistant to the United States Secretary of War. In the 1920s, Dr. Davis served as Secretary to the Presidential Commission investigating the economic conditions in the Virgin Islands.

John Preston Davis (January 19, 1905 – September 11, 1973) was an American journalist, lawyer and activist intellectual, who became prominent for his work with the Joint Committee on National Recovery (JCNR). In 1935, he co-founded the National Negro Congress, an organization dedicated to the advancement of African Americans during the Great Depression.