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Belva Davis | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Davis in 2015 | |
| Born | Belvagene Melton October 13, 1932 Monroe, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Died | September 24, 2025 (aged 92) Oakland, California, U.S. |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1957–2012 |
| Spouses |
Bill Moore (m. 1967) |
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Belvagene Davis (née Melton; October 13, 1932 – September 24, 2025) was an American television and radio journalist. She was the first African-American woman to become a television reporter on the U.S. West Coast. She won eight Emmy Awards and was recognized by the American Women in Radio and Television and National Association of Black Journalists.
After growing up in Oakland, California, Davis began writing freelance articles for magazines in 1957. Within a few years, she began reporting on radio and television. As a reporter, Davis covered many important events of the day, including issues of race, gender, and politics. She became an anchorwoman and hosted her own talk show, before retiring in 2012.
Early life
Belvagene Melton was born in Monroe, Louisiana, on October 13, 1932, to John and Florence Melton. She was the oldest of four children.[1][2] Her mother was 14 years old at Belva's birth, and Belva spent her early years living with various relatives.[3] When she was eight years old, Belva and her family, including aunts and cousins, moved to a two-bedroom apartment in the West Oakland neighborhood of Oakland, California. Eleven people lived in the apartment.[1] Davis later said about her youth, "I learned to survive. And, as I moved from place to place, I learned to adapt. When I got older, I just figured I could become whatever it was that I needed to become."[3]
By the late 1940s, her parents were able to afford a house in Berkeley, California. Davis graduated from Berkeley High School in 1951, becoming the first member of her family to graduate from high school. She applied and got accepted into San Francisco State University but couldn't afford to attend college.[4] She went to work as a typist at the Oakland Naval Supply Depot, earning $2,000 a year.[1]
Journalism career
Davis accepted a freelance assignment in 1957 for Jet, a magazine focusing on African-American issues, and became a stringer for the publication. She received $5 per piece with no byline. Over the next few years, she began writing for other African-American publications, including the Sun Reporter and Bay Area Independent.[1] Davis edited the Sun Reporter from 1961 through 1968.[5]
In 1961, Davis became an on-air interviewer for KSAN, a San Francisco AM radio station broadcasting a rhythm and blues music format, targeting black listeners in the Bay Area. She made her television debut in 1963 for KTVU, an Oakland-based television station, covering an African-American beauty pageant.[1] She worked as a disc jockey for KDIA, a soul-gospel radio station (also based in Oakland) when the 1964 Republican National Convention, located at the Cow Palace in nearby Daly City, California, inspired her to become a reporter. According to Davis's account, while she was covering the convention with Louis Freeman, the two were chased out of the Cow Palace by convention attendees throwing food at them and yelling racial slurs.[6][7] It would not be the last time she encountered racism on the job: In 1967 she covered a march during the Civil Rights Movement in Forsyth County, Georgia, and attempted to interview a white woman who spat in her face.[3]
Davis worked for KNEW, an AM radio station located in Oakland, as an announcer in 1966.[5] She became the first female African-American television journalist on the West Coast when she was hired by KPIX-TV, the CBS affiliate based in San Francisco, in 1966.[3] She spent the next three decades working in Bay Area television, first for KPIX (becoming an anchorwoman in 1970)[5], and a few years later moved to what was then the local NBC affiliate, KRON-TV.[1] Stories she covered include the Berkeley riots of the Free Speech Movement, the Black Panthers, the mass suicide-murder at Jonestown, the Moscone–Milk assassinations, the AIDS and crack epidemics, and the 1998 United States embassy bombing in Tanzania.[1][6]
Davis was highly regarded for her coverage of politics and issues of race and gender,[6] as well as her calm demeanor. Rita Williams, a reporter for KTVU, said "Belva knew instinctively how to keep everyone in check. Amid all these prima donnas, she had so much class, so much presence, so much intuition. Belva has always been the grande dame."[1]
Her autobiography, entitled Never in My Wildest Dreams: A Black Woman's Life in Journalism, was published in 2010. In the foreword, Bill Cosby wrote that she had symbolic value to the African-American television audience, as "someone who sustained us, who made us proud." He wrote that "We looked forward to seeing her prove the stereotypical ugliness of those days to be wrong."[3]
Davis hosted "This Week in Northern California" on PBS member station KQED, starting in the 1990s. She retired in November 2012.[6] Her final broadcast included a taped interview with Maya Angelou, a personal friend, as she wanted the theme of her final show to be friendship.[3]
Personal life and death
Belva married Frank Davis on January 1, 1952. The couple had two children, and a granddaughter. Davis met her second husband, Bill Moore, in 1967 while working at KPIX-TV.[1][8] Davis and Moore lived in the San Francisco neighborhood of Presidio Heights, and later lived in Petaluma, California.[9] Belva Davis, a private person, separated her personal life from her professional life for most of her journalistic life. In 1975, Davis allowed an African-American woman and American Women in Radio and TV member, Kathleen H. Arnold (today anthropologist Kathleen Rand Reed), to produce Belva Davis – This is Your Life. Davis mentored Reed for decades.[10]
Davis served on the boards of Museum of the African Diaspora, the Institute on Aging, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.[1] Davis raised $5 million for the Museum of the African Diaspora in one year.[11]
Davis died in Oakland, California, from a long illness on September 24, 2025, at the age of 92.[12][13][14]
Honors
Davis won eight Emmy Awards from the San Francisco / Northern California chapter.[6] She was an honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha.[15] She received lifetime achievement awards from the American Women in Radio and Television and National Association of Black Journalists.[1]
Bibliography
- Davis, Belva; Haddock, Vicki (2011). Never in My Wildest Dreams: A Black Woman's Life in Journalism. Polipoint Press. ISBN 978-1-936227-06-8.
References
- Jones, Carolyn (May 9, 2010). "Belva Davis, grande dame of Bay Area journalism". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved November 14, 2012.
- Guthrie, Julian (January 20, 2011). "Newswoman Belva Davis reflects on her life". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved January 7, 2013.
- Barney, Chuck (November 6, 2012). "Belva Davis, acclaimed journalist, ready to step away from anchor chair". San Jose Mercury News. Retrieved November 14, 2012.
- Harris, Janelle (July 30, 2014). "SO WHAT DO YOU, DO BELVA DAVIS, PIONEERING BROADCAST JOURNALIST, TV HOST AND AUTHOR?". Mediabistro. Archived from the original on August 4, 2014. Retrieved October 15, 2014.
- Mantell, Jim (July 17, 1976). "Moving Up In The Media". Baltimore Afro-American. p. 7. Retrieved November 14, 2012.
- Asimov, Nanette (February 23, 2012). "Groundbreaking journalist Belva Davis to retire". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved November 14, 2012.
- Rutland, Ginger (February 19, 2012). "The Reading Rack". Sacramento Bee. p. E3. Archived from the original on February 1, 2013. Retrieved November 14, 2012.
- De La O, Jessie (May 15, 2012). "Bay Area Journalist gives inspiring lecture". The Oak Leaf. Santa Rosa, California. Retrieved January 7, 2012.
- Holman Parmer, Janet (December 8, 1999). "Finding a Personal Side to the Homeless Story: Journalists Find a Cause in Petaluma". The Press Democrat. Santa Rosa, California. Archived from the original on July 13, 2018. Retrieved January 7, 2013.(subscription required)
- "Frisco Woman Honored for Broadcast Work", Jet Magazine, January 22, 1976, Vol. 49, No. 17.
- Parmer, Janet (April 21, 2006). "$5 Million Mission: Veteran Journalist Belva Davis Faced Challenge When Asked To Raise Enough Money to Finance SF's Museum of the African Diaspora in Just One Year". The Press Democrat. Santa Rosa, California. Retrieved January 7, 2013. (subscription required)
- Shafer, Scott (September 25, 2025). "Groundbreaking Journalist Belva Davis Dies at 92". KQED. Retrieved September 25, 2025.
- Toledo, Aldo (September 24, 2025). "Bay Area TV news icon Belva Davis dies at 92". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved September 25, 2025.
- Gabriel, Trip (October 4, 2025). "Belva Davis, West Coast Trailblazer in TV News, Dies at 92". The New York Times. Retrieved October 4, 2025.
- "Membership: Honorary Members". Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved October 12, 2007.
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Belva Davis, West Coast Trailblazer in TV News, Dies at 92
Overcoming poverty and prejudice, she was the first Black woman to be hired as a television reporter in the region and later became a popular anchor.
Belva Davis, who was hailed as the first Black woman hired as a television reporter on the West Coast and who overcame early hostility and career roadblocks on the way to becoming a respected figure in broadcast news in the Bay Area for nearly 50 years, died on Sept. 24 at her home in Oakland, Calif. She was 92.
Her daughter, Darolyn Davis, confirmed the death.
Ms. Davis first went on the air in February 1967 at KPIX, the CBS affiliate in San Francisco. Earlier, she had worked as a D.J. playing jazz and rhythm-and-blues records for Black-oriented Bay Area radio stations.
In 1964, while reporting for one of those stations, KDIA-AM, from the Republican National Convention at the Cow Palace arena south of San Francisco, Ms. Davis and a Black male reporter were hounded from the hall by fans of the nominee, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. The crowd snarled racial epithets and tossed garbage at them, she recalled in a 2010 memoir, “Never In My Wildest Dreams: A Black Woman’s Life in Journalism,” written with Vicki Haddock. A hurled soda bottle narrowly missed her head.
“All too many white Americans refused to believe the harsh truth about race relations in their own country,” Ms. Davis wrote, explaining her motivation to become a journalist.
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Though she had no formal training in news gathering, she resolved to report the realities of life for many Black Americans in an era when much of the country lived amid de facto segregation.
Raised and then abandoned by a teenage mother who worked as a laundress, Ms. Davis overcame enfeebling obstacles of poverty and prejudice. She wrestled with self-doubt about not having a college degree. As she recalled, a TV station manager who rejected her in an early job interview told her, “I’m sorry, we’re just not hiring any Negresses.”
She went on to become a popular news anchor for three Bay Area TV stations — KPIX, KRON and KQED — for more than 46 years before she retired in 2012 at age 80.
Her formative years in TV coincided with the tumultuous 1960s and ’70s in the Bay Area. She reported on violent unrest at the University of California, Berkeley; the rise of the Black Panther Party; and the assassinations of Mayor George R. Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk of San Francisco on Nov. 27, 1978.
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That day, Ms. Davis was the anchor of a prime-time newscast on KQED, the city’s PBS station. She interviewed Willie Brown, the future San Francisco mayor who was then a state assemblyman and who had been in the mayor’s office minutes before Mr. Moscone was shot, and Dianne Feinstein, the future California senator who was then a supervisor and had found Mr. Milk’s body.
The broadcast received an award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for best local news program. Ms. Davis also won eight local Emmy Awards during her career.
Off the air, she was an advocate for racial visibility and opportunity. She was the national equal employment opportunities chair for AFTRA, the broadcast union now known as SAG-AFTRA.
How The Times decides who gets an obituary. There is no formula, scoring system or checklist in determining the news value of a life. We investigate, research and ask around before settling on our subjects. If you know of someone who might be a candidate for a Times obituary, please suggest it here.
In 2002, Mr. Brown, who was by then San Francisco’s mayor, recruited Ms. Davis to help create the Museum of the African Diaspora in the city. She raised millions of dollars for the project and became board president, drawing on her connections to the city’s wealthy cultural patrons. The museum opened in 2005.
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Belvagene Melton was born on Oct. 13, 1932, in Monroe, La., during the Jim Crow era of segregation. Her mother, Florene Wood, was 14 at the time and earned $4 a week in a commercial laundry. Her father, John Melton, was a sawmill worker whom she described in her autobiography as “a handsome, savvy but volatile man who swaggered his way through life, despite never having finished grammar school.”
Fleeing racism and hard times in the Deep South, her extended family moved to Oakland in the early 1940s. For a time, 11 relatives lived in a rented basement until they could relocate to a housing project in the West Oakland neighborhood. There, Belva slept on the kitchen floor.
“My home was overstuffed with people but lacking in affection,” Ms. Davis wrote.
She was in middle school when her mother abandoned the family. Belva, whose father largely ignored her, found escape in books and at the academically rigorous Berkeley High School, from which she earned a diploma in 1951. She was the first in her immediate family to graduate from high school.
Unable to afford college, she became a typist at Oakland’s Naval Supply Center. She also joined Black women’s organizations and began writing, without pay, about their activities for small publications. It led to work as a freelance stringer for the Chicago-based Black news and culture magazine Jet. The Bay Area Independent, a small Black weekly, hired her full-time at $40 a week.
Ms. Davis broke into radio in the early 1960s, hosting “The Belva Davis Show” on KDIA, spinning records and interviewing performers who visited Oakland or San Francisco, among them Frank Sinatra and Bill Cosby.
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She pursued opportunities for a full-time TV job for years without success at a time when newsrooms were overwhelmingly white and male. But by the mid-1960s, some of the biggest news stories of the day — the civil rights movement, urban unrest and the evolving role of women in society — seemed to call for different perspectives in journalism.
The N.A.A.C.P. and local Black leaders demanded that Bay Area stations break the color barrier. In January 1966, KPIX hired its first Black reporter, Ben Williams of The San Francisco Examiner. A year later, after testing her on camera, KPIX brought Ms. Davis aboard as a general-assignment reporter, with one requirement: she needed to lose 10 pounds.
She was swiftly thrown into covering crime, clashes between the police and student protesters at Berkeley, and the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy before his assassination in Los Angeles in June 1968.
Reporting about the rise of the Black Panthers, whose co-founder Huey P. Newton dated an acquaintance of hers, Ms. Davis sought to explain to alarmed white viewers why those gun-toting militants enjoyed respect in the same neighborhoods where she grew up, in part because they set out to defend Black residents against brutality by the nearly all-white police department.
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Ms. Davis moved to KQED in 1977 and to KRON-TV, San Francisco’s NBC affiliate, in 1984. She remained there for 18 years, including as a co-anchor covering national political conventions with Rollin Post.
“She’s Type A; I’m the type who likes to take naps,” Mr. Post told The San Francisco Chronicle. “Belva always seemed to have self-doubts about whether she was qualified to do this or that. But she’s never walked away from her past. She wants to prove, more to herself than to anybody else, that she cannot, and will not, let down the African American community.”
Ms. Davis later returned to KQED, where for many years she led a round table show, “This Week in Northern California,” until her retirement in 2012.
Her marriage to Frank Davis, whom she wed at 19, ended in divorce. In the mid-1960s, she married Bill Moore, who became a TV cameraman. In addition to her daughter, Darolyn, from her first marriage, she is survived by her husband; a son, Steven, also from her first marriage; and two granddaughters.
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Over her career, Ms. Davis interviewed influential figures including James Baldwin, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Fidel Castro and Muhammad Ali.
One who turned her down, citing his dislike of media sit-downs, was Lenny Bruce, the taboo-breaking comedian, who opened a show in San Francisco in the early 1960s with a rat-a-tat repetition of the N-word. His explanation was that by freely using the slur, he would drain it of its racist sting.
Ms. Davis, who had been driven from the 1964 Republican Convention in a hail of N-words, didn’t buy it.
“I would argue,” she wrote in her memoir, “that a half-century after Lenny Bruce thought he was disarming the word, it has lost none of its lacerating power to wound.”
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