Danny K. Davis (Finding Aid)

Danny K. Davis

1941 -

Favorite Color: Blue

Favorite Food: Turnip greens and hot water corn bread

Favorite Time of Year: Summer

Favorite Vacation Spot: the South

Interview Length: 190 minutes

Interview Date(s): December 15, 2003

Interview Location(s): Chicago, Illinois

Abstract

Congressman Danny K. Davis recalls family history from Alabama and Arkansas, and tells about finding distant relatives in recent years. He tells stories passed down from his father and his own memories about searching for Confederate "treasuries" hidden from the Yankees during the Civil War, and about seeing ghosts or "haints" of recently departed neighbors. He also relates his father's stories and his own reading about tricks used by the Klan to scare superstitious African Americans and about how black people were cheated out of property after Reconstruction. Congressman Danny Davis talks in detail about his parents, Hezekiah 'H.D.' Davis and Mazzie Lee Glass Davis, relating entertaining anecdotes to illustrate their generosity, values, humor and wisdom despite their lack of formal education. He describes the small town of Parkdale, Arkansas, where an area called "the quarters" housed African Americans who worked in white folks' houses or at the mill; the Davis family, tenant farmers, lived in rural Ashley County. He tells how the farming cycles controlled their cash flow and their school term. Davis also remembers church and his father's public prayers, his love of reading in his youth, his difficulty with stuttering as a child, and a very influential teacher, Mrs. Beadie King. Congressman Danny Davis talks about his experiences at his small high school in Parkdale, Arkansas and at Arkansas A. M. & N. College (later University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff) during the 1950s. He also recounts a story about his sharecropper father, who successfully stood up for his rights when the plantation owner's son tried to cheat him out of what the Davis family was owed for the year's cotton crop. Congressman Danny Davis talks about his experiences as a student in the 1950s at Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College, later University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. He recalls students' involvement in the early civil rights movement and shares memories of race relations in Arkansas during his youth. Davis tells of his move after college to Chicago, Illinois, where he first worked for several years as a public school teacher and counselor, then for community health centers on Chicago's West Side. Becoming increasingly involved in community activism, he eventually ran for office and in 1979 was elected to the Chicago City Coucil; Davis recalls his first years as an Alderman during Jane Byrne's mayoral administration. Congressman Danny Davis talks about his election to the Chicago City Council in 1979, the first independent, non-Machine candidate to be elected from the West Side, where black aldermen had been controlled by white ward bosses. He recalls the meeting in Lu Palmer's basement where Harold Washington was asked to run for mayor of Chicago and describes events of the campaign and Washington's first term, in which an ongoing conflict with white aldermen became known as "Council Wars." . Danny Davis praises Chicago Mayor Harold Washington for his ability to share his vision for Chicago, spreading a sense of hope throughout the community. Davis, who was at that time a Chicago alderman, recalls his last meeting with Washington at which they talked about his plans to focus on Chicago's poor in his new term. Davis describes Washington's sudden death from a heart attack as a severe blow to his multi-racial, progressive coalition and discusses the shock, confusion and fragmentation among Washington's supporters after his death. He also discusses his own failed mayoral campaign in 1991, his 1997 election to the U.S. House of Representatives, and some of the legislation he has passed in Congress. Congressman Danny K. Davis talks about his work as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1997-2003.

38 Stories (See Ordered Story Set)