Pages From The Archives
PHOTOS BY 19TH CENTURY
PHOTOGRAPHER
GRIFFITH J .
DAVIS ARE AGAIN IN THE SPOTLIGHT
BY SANDRA DAWSON LONG WEAVER
Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba and U . S . President Dwight D . Eisenhower .
Griff Davis / Griffith J . Davis Photographs and Archives .
When Dorothy Davis decided to sort through her late father ’ s photograph negatives and professional papers after his passing in 1993 , she did not know she was embarking on a 30-year journey .
But now in the 100th anniversary year of his birth , photos taken by Griffith J . Davis in Africa and throughout Black America during the Harlem Renaissance and beginnings of the Civil Rights era , are being exhibited worldwide in various collections .
As executor of his estate , Davis had to go through the 55,000 images that included contact sheets , slides , negatives , prints and film .
“ He also had letters , papers and reports ,” Davis said of her father ’ s collection . “ He had a certain order to it and I knew I had to follow that order when I found an electric bill on top of a letter from Kwame Nkrumah . I had to go through everything individually to find those gems of history .”
It took her two years to organize everything .
Griff Davis first became interested in photography while attending Atlanta University Laboratory , a preparatory high school for Spelman College , Atlanta University and Morehouse College . After returning from service in the Army during World War II as a Buffalo Soldier and photographer , Davis graduated from Morehouse College in 1947 .
In his final semester at the Atlanta school , Davis took a creative writing course that was taught by Langston Hughes , who was a visiting professor . Davis became Hughes ’ campus photographer . After graduation , Davis was hired as Ebony magazine ’ s first roving editor .
In 1948 , Davis enrolled in Columbia University ’ s Graduate School of Journalism and was the only African American in the Class of 1949 . While there , he rented a room in the Harlem home of Hughes and worked as his photographer . Their lifelong friendship is recorded in Hughes ’ official biography , which also includes many of Davis ’ s photographs and part of a curated exhibition by Dorothy Davis entitled , “ Griff Davis- Langston Hughes , Letters and Photographs 1947-1967 : A Global Friendship .”
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