Fred Davis still serving Memphis, a city he loves
Fred Davis is a Memphis treasure. For most of his 84 years, the lifelong Memphian has devoted his energy to working for the best interests of all Memphians.
Whether he dons the hat of businessman, politician, community activist, civic leader or church deacon and trustee, Fred Davis speaks for the marginalized and disenfranchised, the people who live in his Orange Mound neighborhood but also those in North Memphis, Whitehaven, Frayser, Midtown or East Memphis.
He speaks against injustice wherever he sees it. But he does more than just speak — he takes action.
When he was a freshly minted doorto-door insurance salesman, Davis and a few colleagues had the audacity to visit the Fairgrounds Amusement Park on a Sunday. Back then, blacks were allowed at the Fairgrounds on Tuesdays; the other days were reserved for whites only.
Davis and his friends tried to purchase tickets for the various rides; panicked employees called managers, crowds gathered and eventually the police arrived. Some bystanders shouted, “turn them n----- over to us, and we’ll get them outta here.” Davis and his friends were jailed. Well-known black lawyers A.W. Willis, Russell Sugarmon and Ben Hooks bailed them out.
“Being in jail, that’s a strange feeling,” Davis said. “When you hear those doors clanging behind you two or three times, you think, ‘This time it’s for real!’ I was angry, but I was not afraid. I was sort of feisty.”
At trial, the judge had to decide if he’d imprison the obstinate young men or integrate the Fairgrounds. He opened up the Fairgrounds for blacks to attend on any day they chose.
“I tell myself sometimes that God has one hell of a sense of humor because after I left the City Council, I was appointed to the Park Commission, which had jurisdiction over the Fairgrounds, the golf courses, Pink Palace – all of that,” Davis said. “You just don’t know what is going to transpire over time.”
Davis rebelled in other ways. Before he founded Fred L. Davis Insurance Company in 1967, he had to channel his policies through white insurance brokers, who took part of the profits. He found that to be ridiculous. So he got some influential white business friends to help him get licensed. Davis became the first black independent insurance agent in a half-dozen states.
About that time, he was elected as one of the first three black members of the Memphis City Council. Before he could get soundly rooted in that historic post, the garbage workers went on strike.
Davis became a critical player as he tried to get the mayor and City Council to give the workers a raise. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Memphis on behalf of the striking workers and delivered his “Mountaintop” speech, Davis was sitting on the edge of the stage at Mason Temple. As Davis was finalizing a settlement for the strike, Dr. King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968.
In the succeeding years, Davis was a consummate civic leader. He was president of the Liberty Bowl, founding director and president of the Mid-South Minority Business Council, inducted into the Society of Entrepreneurs, president of the University of Memphis Society, trustee of the Community Foundation, director of the Memphis Leadership Foundation, founding director of the Assisi Foundation, as well as recipient of the Humanitarian Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. His list of honors is long and glorious. Yet, Davis’s heart and mind were never far from his people in Orange Mound, which Davis had seen change from a flourishing working-class neighborhood with thriving black businesses to a crime-ridden area riddled with vacant buildings and in great need of jobs, investment dollars and motivation.
That’s why in recent months Davis opened Charity’s House, a community resource center established as a location where those who provide services to the community can meet with those in need of those services. Davis dug into his own coffers to purchase and renovate the once-dilapidated house across the street from his church, Beulah Baptist.
Davis says eventually various agencies and entities will use Charity’s House to deliver legal and child support, domestic abuse and substance abuse counseling, as well as other services. It is named in honor of Davis’ late mother, whom he describes as a “neighborhood activist.”
“One of the reasons I still live in Orange Mound is to let the young people here know that you can be successful,” Davis said. “I don’t have to live here, but I choose to because you can’t be what you can’t see. The kids in this neighborhood usually don’t see successful black people who aren’t doing things illegal. They really don’t have a lot of role models.”
The homeless, streetwalkers, rabblerousers and other street denizens in the neighborhood know Davis, for he occasionally buys them food and gives them cold water from a cooler in his car.
Davis knows that Charity’s House is needed, for he grew up poor though rich in character and determination. As a kid, he picked cotton to make money to buy shoes and clothes for school. He then worked at restaurants, including one at The Peabody. While attending Tennessee State, he labored in Chicago meat packinghouses during the summer to pay his tuition. No, Davis did not have an easy life, but he had the smarts to work hard.
And he always speaks his mind. In 2013, he spent $6,000 for a billboard located a few yards from his office of 50 years on Airways. On the left side of the billboard was a young black man in cap and gown, holding a diploma. On the right was the backside of a young black man with his pants hanging below his butt. The words in between the two men read, “Show Your Mind. Not Your Behind.”
Davis purchased rights to use the billboard because he “got so tired of people in bourgeois circles, in churches and other places, whispering about all these fellas with pants sagging.” He did something about it.
Even at this point in his life, Fred Davis is still a fighter, a helper, a man who would rather be out in the streets helping those in need rather than relaxing on his laurels at home.
He and his wife of 61 years, Ella Josephine Davis, have lived in the same Orange Mound home for most of their marriage. He’s seen a lot, done a lot, helped a lot, but he wants to do even more.
We need more Memphians like Fred Davis. He is truly a treasure.
Lynn Norment is a Memphis journalist who previously was an editor and senior writer for Ebony magazine. She can be reached at normentmedia@ gmail.com.