Frank Marshall Davis
Encyclopedia
Frank Marshall Davis was an American journalist
, poet
, and political and labor movement activist.
(1923) and later at Kansas State Agricultural College (now Kansas State University) (1924–27, 1929) but didn't graduate. When Davis entered Kansas State, there were 25 other African-American students enrolled there. He studied industrial journalism. He began to write poems as the result of a class assignment and was encouraged to continue writing poetry by an English literature instructor. Frank pledged Phi Beta Sigma
fraternity in 1925.
, where he worked variously for the Chicago Evening Bulletin, the Chicago Whip and the Gary American, all African-American newspapers. He also wrote free-lance articles and short stories
for African-American magazines. It was also during this time that Davis began a serious effort to write poetry, including his first long poem, entitled Chicago’s Congo, Sonata for an Orchestra.
in 1931. Under Davis's leadership the Atlanta Daily World became the nation's first successful black daily.
In the pages of the paper, Davis articulated an agenda of social realism
(social justice), which included appeals for racial justice in politics and economics, as well as legal justice. Davis became interested in the Communist party
in 1931 during the famous Scottsboro boys
and Angelo Herndon
cases and championed black activism to compensate for social ills not remedied by the larger white society. In the early 30s he warned against blacks accepting the Depression
-era remedies being pushed by communists but by 1936 Davis was listed as a contributing editor to the Spokesman, the official organ of the Youth Section of the National Negro Congress
, which the government had declared a Communist front
organization.
He continued to write and publish poems, which came to the attention of Frances Norton Manning, who introduced Davis to Norman Forge. Forge's Black Cat Press
brought out Davis's first book, Black Man's Verse, in the summer of 1935.
In 1935, Davis moved back to Chicago to take the position of managing editor of the Associated Negro Press, a news service
for black newspapers, which had begun in 1919. Eventually, Davis was named executive editor for the ANP. He held the position until 1947.
During the Depression, Davis participated in the federal Works Progress Administration Writers' Project
. In 1937, he received a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship
.
While in Chicago, Davis also started a photography club, worked for numerous political parties, and participated in the League of American Writers
. With the encouragement of authors such as Richard Wright
and Margaret Walker
, Davis published in 1948 his most ambitious collection of poems, entitled 47th Street: Poems, which chronicles the varied life on Chicago's South Side
.
efforts, starting a Chicago labor newspaper, The Star
, toward the end of World War II. In 1945, he taught one of the first jazz
history courses in the United States, at the Abraham Lincoln School
in Chicago.
In 1948, Davis and his second wife, who had married in 1946, moved to Honolulu, Hawaii
, at the suggestion of Davis’s friend Paul Robeson
. During this time Hawaii was going through a non-violent revolution
between colored labor workers and the white elite known as the Democratic Revolution
. There, Davis operated a small wholesale paper business, Oahu Papers, which mysteriously burned to the ground in March 1951. In 1959, he started another similar firm, the Paradise Paper Company.
Davis also wrote a weekly column, called "Frank-ly Speaking", for the Honolulu Record
, a labor paper published by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union
(ILWU) headed by Harry Bridges
. Davis' first column noted he was a member of the national executive board of the Civil Rights Congress
, cited as a Communist subversive organization
by President Harry S. Truman
's Attorney General Tom Clark
. The paper had been founded in 1948 by Koji Ariyoshi
, and closed in 1958. Davis’s early columns covered labor issues, but he broadened his scope to write about cultural and political issues, especially racism
. He also included the history of blues
and jazz in his columns.
Because he published little poetry between 1948 and his final volume, Awakening, and Other Poems, published in 1978, Davis’s reputation as a poet diminished, but he was rediscovered during the Black Arts Movement
in the 1960s.
A 1950 FBI memo reports that members of the subversive
element in Honolulu were
Robert M. Kempa, a Communist party
informant who agreed to cooperate with government investigators, reported,
Koji Ariyoshi and six others of the movement were arrested by the FBI in synchronized raids. They were charged with plotting to overthrow the Territorial Government.
The Revolution was a success in ousting white rule
and the power of the plantations had been broken.
, which was published in 1968 under a pseudonym. The book, titled Sex Rebel: Black (Memoirs of a Gash Gourmet), was written under the pseudonym “Bob Greene,” and was published by William Hamling's Greenleaf Publishing
Company.
Davis visited Howard University
in Washington, D.C.
, to give a poetry reading in 1973, marking the first time he had seen the U.S. mainland in 25 years. His work began to appear in anthologies
. Livin' the Blues: Memories of a Black Journalist and Poet (1992), Black Moods: Collected Poems (2002), and Writings of Frank Marshall Davis: A Voice of the Black Press (2007) were published posthumously.
. Sonnets and, in fact, all rhyme
held little interest for" him. Davis claimed his "greatest single influence" was the poetry of Carl Sandburg
"because of his hard, muscular poetry."
During the middle of the twentieth century, Davis set forth a radical vision that challenged the status quo. His commentary on race relations, music, literature, and American culture was precise, impassioned, and engaged. At the height of World War II, Davis questioned the nature of America’s potential postwar relations and what they meant for African Americans and the nation. His work challenged the usefulness of race as a social construct, and he eventually disavowed the idea of race altogether.
In his reviews on music, he argued that blues and jazz were responses to social conditions and served as weapons of racial integration. His book reviews complemented his radical vision by commenting on how literature reshapes one’s understanding of the world. Even his travel writings on Hawaii called for cultural pluralism and tolerance for racial and economic difference.
Chicago
socialite
, who was 19 years his junior. They divorced in 1970, and Helen died in May 1998 in Honolulu. The couple had four daughters named Lynn, Beth, Jeanne and Jill and a son named Mark.
At one point during a particularly difficult time in their marriage, Davis wrote a poem, entitled "To Helen", in which he attempted to re-earn her love. The poem reads in part:
Davis died in 1987, in Honolulu, of a heart attack, at the age of 81. Most sources list the date of his death as 26 July. However, the Social Security Death Index
gives 15 July 1987 as his date of death, as does his college fraternity, Phi Beta Sigma
.
, Barack Obama
wrote about "Frank", a friend of his grandfather's. "Frank" told Obama that he and Stanley (Obama's maternal grandfather) both had grown up only 50 miles apart, near Wichita
, although they did not meet until Hawaii. He described the way race relations were back then, including Jim Crow, and his view that there had been little progress since then. As Obama remembered, "It made me smile, thinking back on Frank and his old Black Power
, dashiki
self. In some ways he was as incurable as my mother, as certain in his faith, living in the same sixties
time warp that Hawaii had created." Obama also remembered Frank later in life when he took a job in South Chicago as a community organizer and took some time one day to visit the areas where Frank had lived and wrote in his book, "I imagined Frank in a baggy suit and wide lapels, standing in front of the old Regal Theatre, waiting to see Duke or Ella emerge from a gig."
In the opinion of Gerald Horne
, a contributing editor to the CPUSA publication Political Affairs
, Davis was "a decisive influence in helping Obama to find his present identity" as an African-American. Claims that Davis was a political influence on Obama were made by Jerome Corsi
in his anti-Obama book The Obama Nation. A rebuttal released by Obama's presidential campaign, titled Unfit for Publication, confirmed that "Frank" was Frank Marshall Davis, but disputes those claims about the nature of their relationship.
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, and political and labor movement activist.
Early life
Beginning at age 17, Davis attended Friends UniversityFriends University
Friends University is a private non-denominational Christian university in Wichita, Kansas.Friends University was founded in 1898. The main building was originally built in 1886 for Garfield University, but was donated in 1898 to the Religious Society of Friends by James Davis, a St. Louis...
(1923) and later at Kansas State Agricultural College (now Kansas State University) (1924–27, 1929) but didn't graduate. When Davis entered Kansas State, there were 25 other African-American students enrolled there. He studied industrial journalism. He began to write poems as the result of a class assignment and was encouraged to continue writing poetry by an English literature instructor. Frank pledged Phi Beta Sigma
Phi Beta Sigma
Phi Beta Sigma is a predominantly African-American fraternity which was founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C. on January 9, 1914, by three young African-American male students. The founders A. Langston Taylor, Leonard F. Morse, and Charles I...
fraternity in 1925.
1920s
In 1927, Davis moved to ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, where he worked variously for the Chicago Evening Bulletin, the Chicago Whip and the Gary American, all African-American newspapers. He also wrote free-lance articles and short stories
Short Stories
Short Stories may refer to:*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , an American pulp magazine published from 1890-1959*Short Stories, a 1954 collection by O. E...
for African-American magazines. It was also during this time that Davis began a serious effort to write poetry, including his first long poem, entitled Chicago’s Congo, Sonata for an Orchestra.
1930s
In 1931, he moved to Atlanta to become an editor of a semiweekly paper. Davis transformed the Atlanta Daily World into a daily newspaper within two years of taking the job as the paper's managing editorManaging editor
A managing editor is a senior member of a publication's management team.In the United States, a managing editor oversees and coordinates the publication's editorial activities...
in 1931. Under Davis's leadership the Atlanta Daily World became the nation's first successful black daily.
In the pages of the paper, Davis articulated an agenda of social realism
Social realism
Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...
(social justice), which included appeals for racial justice in politics and economics, as well as legal justice. Davis became interested in the Communist party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
in 1931 during the famous Scottsboro boys
Scottsboro Boys
The Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenage boys accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial...
and Angelo Herndon
Angelo Herndon
Angelo Braxton Herndon was an African American labor organizer arrested and convicted for insurrection after attempting to organize black industrial workers in 1932 in Atlanta, Georgia...
cases and championed black activism to compensate for social ills not remedied by the larger white society. In the early 30s he warned against blacks accepting the Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
-era remedies being pushed by communists but by 1936 Davis was listed as a contributing editor to the Spokesman, the official organ of the Youth Section of the National Negro Congress
National Negro Congress
The National Negro Congress is an organization which was put into place by the Communist Party of the United States of America in 1935 at Howard University. It was a popular front organization created with the goal of fighting for Black liberation and was the successor to the League of Struggle for...
, which the government had declared a Communist front
Communist front
A Communist front organization is an organization identified to be a front organization under the effective control of a Communist party, the Communist International or other Communist organizations. Lenin originated the idea in his manifesto of 1902, "What Is to Be Done?"...
organization.
He continued to write and publish poems, which came to the attention of Frances Norton Manning, who introduced Davis to Norman Forge. Forge's Black Cat Press
Grove Press
Grove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1951. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it into an alternative book press in the United States. The Atlantic Monthly Press, under the aegis of its...
brought out Davis's first book, Black Man's Verse, in the summer of 1935.
In 1935, Davis moved back to Chicago to take the position of managing editor of the Associated Negro Press, a news service
News agency
A news agency is an organization of journalists established to supply news reports to news organizations: newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. Such an agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire or news service.-History:The oldest news agency is Agence...
for black newspapers, which had begun in 1919. Eventually, Davis was named executive editor for the ANP. He held the position until 1947.
During the Depression, Davis participated in the federal Works Progress Administration Writers' Project
Federal Writers' Project
The Federal Writers' Project was a United States federal government project to fund written work and support writers during the Great Depression. It was part of the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program...
. In 1937, he received a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship
Rosenwald Fund
The Rosenwald Fund was established in 1917 by Julius Rosenwald and his family for "the well-being of mankind."...
.
While in Chicago, Davis also started a photography club, worked for numerous political parties, and participated in the League of American Writers
League of American Writers
The League of American Writers was an association of American novelists, playwrights, poets, journalists, and literary critics launched by the Communist Party USA in 1935...
. With the encouragement of authors such as Richard Wright
Richard Wright (author)
Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries...
and Margaret Walker
Margaret Walker
Margaret Abigail Walker Alexander was an African-American poet and writer. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, she wrote as Margaret Walker. One of her best-known poems is For My People.-Biography:...
, Davis published in 1948 his most ambitious collection of poems, entitled 47th Street: Poems, which chronicles the varied life on Chicago's South Side
South Side (Chicago)
The South Side is a major part of the City of Chicago, which is located in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Much of it has evolved from the city's incorporation of independent townships, such as Hyde Park Township which voted along with several other townships to be annexed in the June 29,...
.
1940s
Davis used his newspaper platform to call for integration of the sports world, and he began to engage himself with community organizingCommunity organizing
Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest. A core goal of community organizing is to generate durable power for an organization representing the community, allowing it to influence...
efforts, starting a Chicago labor newspaper, The Star
Chicago Star
The Chicago Star was a Communist Party USA weekly publication.Founded in 1946, members of the board of directors were Ernest De Maio, Frank Marshall Davis, William L. Patterson, Grant Oakes, and William Sennett. The executive editor was Frank M. Davis; managing editor, Carl Hirsch; and general...
, toward the end of World War II. In 1945, he taught one of the first jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
history courses in the United States, at the Abraham Lincoln School
Abraham Lincoln School
The Abraham Lincoln School for Social Sciences of Chicago, Illinois was a "broad,nonpartisan school for workers, writers, and their sympathizers," aimed at...
in Chicago.
In 1948, Davis and his second wife, who had married in 1946, moved to Honolulu, Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, at the suggestion of Davis’s friend Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
. During this time Hawaii was going through a non-violent revolution
Non-violent revolution
A nonviolent revolution is a revolution using mostly campaigns of civil resistance, including various forms of nonviolent protest, to bring about the departure of governments seen as entrenched and authoritarian...
between colored labor workers and the white elite known as the Democratic Revolution
Democratic Revolution of 1954 (Hawaii)
The Hawaii Democratic Revolution of 1954 was a nonviolent revolution that took place in the Hawaiian Archipelago consisting of general strikes, protests, and other acts of civil disobedience...
. There, Davis operated a small wholesale paper business, Oahu Papers, which mysteriously burned to the ground in March 1951. In 1959, he started another similar firm, the Paradise Paper Company.
Davis also wrote a weekly column, called "Frank-ly Speaking", for the Honolulu Record
Honolulu Record
The Honolulu Record was a newspaper established after World War II by Koji Ariyoshi, a Hawaiian Nisei labor activist and war veteran with support from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union....
, a labor paper published by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union
International Longshore and Warehouse Union
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union is a labor union which primarily represents dock workers on the West Coast of the United States, Hawaii and Alaska, and in British Columbia, Canada. It also represents hotel workers in Hawaii, cannery workers in Alaska, warehouse workers throughout...
(ILWU) headed by Harry Bridges
Harry Bridges
Harry Bridges was an Australian-American union leader, in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union , a longshore and warehouse workers' union on the West Coast, Hawaii and Alaska which he helped form and led for over 40 years...
. Davis' first column noted he was a member of the national executive board of the Civil Rights Congress
Civil Rights Congress
The Civil Rights Congress was a civil rights organization formed in 1946 by a merger of the International Labor Defense and the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties. It became known for involvement in civil rights cases such as the Trenton Six and justice for Isaiah Nixon. The CRC...
, cited as a Communist subversive organization
Subversive Activities Control Board
The Subversive Activities Control Board was a United States government committee to investigate Communist infiltration of American society during the 1950s Red Scare....
by President Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
's Attorney General Tom Clark
Tom Clark
Tom Clark is a Canadian television journalist. He has been a substitute anchor for CTV National News, and host of Power Play, a political program on CTV News Channel...
. The paper had been founded in 1948 by Koji Ariyoshi
Koji Ariyoshi
' was a Nisei, Labor activist, and a Sergeant in the United States Army during the Second World War.-Early life:Ariyoshi was born in Hawaii in 1914 to Japanese immigrant parents. Ariyoshi grew up helping his family make a living on a small eight-acre coffee plantation. He attended Konawaena High...
, and closed in 1958. Davis’s early columns covered labor issues, but he broadened his scope to write about cultural and political issues, especially racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
. He also included the history of blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
and jazz in his columns.
Because he published little poetry between 1948 and his final volume, Awakening, and Other Poems, published in 1978, Davis’s reputation as a poet diminished, but he was rediscovered during the Black Arts Movement
Black Arts Movement
The Black Arts Movement or BAM is the artistic branch of the Black Power movement. It was started in Harlem by writer and activist Amiri Baraka...
in the 1960s.
1950s
The Democratic Revolution had disrupted industry and attracted attention from authorities. Workers conducted large strikes in 1946, 1947, and 1949 with more to come. After the Hawaiian Dock Strike of 1949 the FBI was brought into the Islands to put an end to the movement.A 1950 FBI memo reports that members of the subversive
Subversion
Apache Subversion is a software versioning and a revision control system distributed under a free license. Developers use Subversion to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation...
element in Honolulu were
Robert M. Kempa, a Communist party
Communist Party of Hawaii
The Communist Party of Hawaii was the regional party of the Communist Party USA in the United States Territory of Hawaii.-Appeal:The party targeted poor working class such as the stevedores and plantation workers in the Territory.-Unions:...
informant who agreed to cooperate with government investigators, reported,
Koji Ariyoshi and six others of the movement were arrested by the FBI in synchronized raids. They were charged with plotting to overthrow the Territorial Government.
The Revolution was a success in ousting white rule
Dominant minority
A dominant minority, also known as alien elites if they are recent immigrants, is a group that has overwhelming political, economic or cultural dominance in a country or region despite representing a small fraction of the overall population...
and the power of the plantations had been broken.
Later years
Davis also authored a hard core pornographic novelNovel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
, which was published in 1968 under a pseudonym. The book, titled Sex Rebel: Black (Memoirs of a Gash Gourmet), was written under the pseudonym “Bob Greene,” and was published by William Hamling's Greenleaf Publishing
William Hamling (publisher)
William Lawrence Hamling was a Chicago-based publisher active from the 1950s into the 1970s.Hamling began as an author. His Shadow of the Sphinx is a horror novel about an ancient Egyptian sorceress. First published during the 1940s in Fantastic Adventures, it was described by Lin Carter as "the...
Company.
Davis visited Howard University
Howard University
Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, to give a poetry reading in 1973, marking the first time he had seen the U.S. mainland in 25 years. His work began to appear in anthologies
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
. Livin' the Blues: Memories of a Black Journalist and Poet (1992), Black Moods: Collected Poems (2002), and Writings of Frank Marshall Davis: A Voice of the Black Press (2007) were published posthumously.
Analysis of his literary work
Davis said he was captivated early on by "the new revolutionary style called free verseFree verse
Free verse is a form of poetry that refrains from consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern.Poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, is not free. Free Verse displays some elements of form...
. Sonnets and, in fact, all rhyme
Rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...
held little interest for" him. Davis claimed his "greatest single influence" was the poetry of Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...
"because of his hard, muscular poetry."
During the middle of the twentieth century, Davis set forth a radical vision that challenged the status quo. His commentary on race relations, music, literature, and American culture was precise, impassioned, and engaged. At the height of World War II, Davis questioned the nature of America’s potential postwar relations and what they meant for African Americans and the nation. His work challenged the usefulness of race as a social construct, and he eventually disavowed the idea of race altogether.
In his reviews on music, he argued that blues and jazz were responses to social conditions and served as weapons of racial integration. His book reviews complemented his radical vision by commenting on how literature reshapes one’s understanding of the world. Even his travel writings on Hawaii called for cultural pluralism and tolerance for racial and economic difference.
Legacy of political activism
Kathryn Waddell Takara has made this evaluation of Davis's political legacy.Personal life
In 1946, Davis married Helen Canfield, a whiteCaucasian race
The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...
Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
socialite
Socialite
A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....
, who was 19 years his junior. They divorced in 1970, and Helen died in May 1998 in Honolulu. The couple had four daughters named Lynn, Beth, Jeanne and Jill and a son named Mark.
At one point during a particularly difficult time in their marriage, Davis wrote a poem, entitled "To Helen", in which he attempted to re-earn her love. The poem reads in part:
- I shall make you part of me,
- My darling,
- Fundamental as heart
- Primary as mind
- And to you I shall become
- As the blood in your veins.
Davis died in 1987, in Honolulu, of a heart attack, at the age of 81. Most sources list the date of his death as 26 July. However, the Social Security Death Index
Social Security Death Index
The Social Security Death Index is a database of death records created from the United States Social Security Administration's Death Master File Extract. Most persons who have died since 1962 who had a Social Security Number and whose death has been reported to the Social Security Administration...
gives 15 July 1987 as his date of death, as does his college fraternity, Phi Beta Sigma
Phi Beta Sigma
Phi Beta Sigma is a predominantly African-American fraternity which was founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C. on January 9, 1914, by three young African-American male students. The founders A. Langston Taylor, Leonard F. Morse, and Charles I...
.
Davis and Barack Obama
In his memoir Dreams from My FatherDreams from My Father
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance is a memoir by United States President Barack Obama. It was first published in July 1995 as he was preparing to launch his political career, five years after being elected the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review in...
, Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
wrote about "Frank", a friend of his grandfather's. "Frank" told Obama that he and Stanley (Obama's maternal grandfather) both had grown up only 50 miles apart, near Wichita
Wichita, Kansas
Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...
, although they did not meet until Hawaii. He described the way race relations were back then, including Jim Crow, and his view that there had been little progress since then. As Obama remembered, "It made me smile, thinking back on Frank and his old Black Power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
, dashiki
Dashiki
The dashiki is a colorful men's garment widely worn in West Africa that covers the top half of the body. It has formal and informal versions and varies from simple draped clothing to fully tailored suits. Traditional female attire is called a caftan, or kaftan...
self. In some ways he was as incurable as my mother, as certain in his faith, living in the same sixties
1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...
time warp that Hawaii had created." Obama also remembered Frank later in life when he took a job in South Chicago as a community organizer and took some time one day to visit the areas where Frank had lived and wrote in his book, "I imagined Frank in a baggy suit and wide lapels, standing in front of the old Regal Theatre, waiting to see Duke or Ella emerge from a gig."
In the opinion of Gerald Horne
Gerald Horne
Gerald Horne is an African American historian who currently holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. He received his PhD from Columbia University and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a frequent...
, a contributing editor to the CPUSA publication Political Affairs
Political Affairs Magazine
Political Affairs Magazine is a monthly, online Marxist publication. It aims to provide an analysis of events from a working class point of view. Political Affairs Magazine is a publication of the Communist Party USA. It was founded in 1944 upon the closure of its predecessor, The Communist, which...
, Davis was "a decisive influence in helping Obama to find his present identity" as an African-American. Claims that Davis was a political influence on Obama were made by Jerome Corsi
Jerome Corsi
Jerome Robert Corsi is an American author, political commentator and conspiracy theorist best known for his two New York Times bestselling books: The Obama Nation and Unfit for Command...
in his anti-Obama book The Obama Nation. A rebuttal released by Obama's presidential campaign, titled Unfit for Publication, confirmed that "Frank" was Frank Marshall Davis, but disputes those claims about the nature of their relationship.
Works
Selected works- Black Man's Verse; Black Cat, (Chicago, IL), 1935.
- I Am the American Negro, Black Cat, (Chicago, IL), 1937, ISBN 978-0836989205
- Through Sepia Eyes; Black Cat, (Chicago, IL), 1938.
- 47th Street: Poems; Decker (Prairie City, IL), 1948.
- Black Man's Verse; Black Cat (Skokie, IL), 1961.
- Sex Rebel: Black (Memoirs of a Gash Gourmet), (written under pseudonym "Bob Greene"); Greenleaf Publishing Company (Evanston, IL), 1968.
- Jazz Interludes: Seven Musical Poems; Black Cat (Skokie, IL), 1977.
- Awakening and Other Poems; Black Cat (Skokie, IL), 1978.
- Livin' the Blues: Memoirs of a Black Journalist and Poet, ed. John Edgar Tidwell; University of Wisconsin Press, 1992, ISBN 978-0299135003
- Black Moods: Collected Poems, ed. John Edgar Tidwell; University of Illinois Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0252027383
- Writings of Frank Marshall Davis: A Voice of the Black Press, ed. by John Edgar Tidwell; University Press of Mississippi, 2007. ISBN 1578069211; ISBN 978-1578069217
External links
- Excerpts from Livin' the Blues and two poems, "Chicago's Congo" and "Gary, Indiana" by Frank Marshall Davis
- "Four Glimpses of Night" a poem by Frank Marshall Davis
- "This is Paradise" a poem by Frank Marshall Davis
- Frank-ly Speaking editorials from the Honolulu Record, Center for Labor Education and Research, University of Hawaii - West Oahu
- Tidwell, John Edgar Davis, Frank Marshall (1905–1987) BlackPast.org