John Preston Davis Collection
for African and African-American Documentation

Global Latitudes  Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections

 

The John Preston Davis  Collection is a repository for African and African-American studies documentation. Founded in September 2004  with the support of his granddaughter, Michelle DeMond Davis  the Collection seeks to collect, preserve, and promote the use of materials bearing on the history of Africa and people of African descent. The John P. Davis Collection is committed to preserving and making available pertinent printed and manuscript materials for the use of scholars, academic researchers, and others. The Collection embraces the additional charge of working to make primary source materials an exciting and integral part of instruction and discovery at the secondary and collegiate levels.	In the spirit of John Preston Davis, the Collection seeks to highlight the importance of research methods and scholarly objectivity to the development of a robust citizenry and a thoughtful public policy.   African American students attended Bates College from its opening and have been among its most illustrious graduates and debaters.  John P. Davis '26, founder of the National Negro Congress, was president of the debate union and with partner Erwin Canham '26, later editor of the Christian Science Monitor, toured Britain.     In his autobiography, Born to Rebel, civil rights leader Dr. Benjamin E. Mays '20, president of Morehouse College and mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote that "through competitive experience, I had finally dismissed from my mind for all time the myth" of white supremacy.  By encouraging his participation in debate and other student activities, Mays wrote, Bates made it "possible for me to emancipate myself, to accept with dignity my own worth as a free man."     - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Truman Presidential Museum and Library Oral History with Samuel C. Brightman   Speech Delivered by Rev A. L DeMond on January 1, 1900 at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery Alabama   Warriror at the Bar Rebel at the Bench: The Thurgood Marshall Story   Black American Women in Track and Field		In the Collection Our World Magazine The John Preston Davis Papers Lift Every Voice. The John Preston Davis and National Negro Congress Film The Rise of the African American Left: John P. Davis and The National Negro Congress John P. Davis at President Truman's Inaugural Ball Letters to John P. Davis from President Dwight Eisenhower   John P. Davis with Ethiopian Emperor Haille Selassi  in London   John P. Davis with Langston Hughes in Montmarte   John P. Davis with Francisco Franco of Spain during the Spanish Civil War   John P. Davis in Venice   John P. Davis in Paris in the 1930(s)   John P. Davis in Russia in the 1930(s)   John P. Davis with Congressman Dawson   John P. Davis on tour at Cambridge, Oxford and Heidelberg  Universities   Davis' short stories published in The Crisis  and The Opportunity in the 1920s   The American Negro Reference Book	Important Links Let Us Build A National Negro Congress Ralph Bunche Robert Weaver Protesting Lynching :A National Crime The Status of the Negro Under the New Deal The History of Minimum Wage The Truman Library and Museum
				The John Preston Davis Collection is apart of Global Latitudes
	John Preston Davis, founder of the National Negro Congress, CEO and Publisher of Our World Publishing Company, Inc	About John Preston Davis Biography Writings	Other Collections of John Preston Davis Materials   African and African American Studies Program   Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture   Library Resources in African American Studies Special Collections Library Gold Meir Lirary's Morris Franklin Memorial Collection Davis MacLaren Memorial Book Collection: Center for New Deal Studies	Other Collections of African and African American Materials Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center The Amistad Research Center The Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers Project

 

 

©2004 John Preston Davis Collection for African and African-American Documentation
Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections

 

Last updated November 2004