Frank Marshall Davis
Frank Marshall Davis was an influential poet, journalist, and social activist born on December 31, 1905, in Arkansas City, Kansas. His early life was marked by traumatic experiences, including attempts of lynching and racial discrimination, which shaped his views on race. Davis pursued journalism and poetry, eventually finding success as an editor and columnist for various newspapers, including the Chicago Evening Bulletin. He published his first poetry collection, *Black Man's Verse*, in 1935 and became involved with the Federal Writers' Project, collaborating with prominent African American writers like Langston Hughes and Richard Wright.
Davis's poetry often addressed themes of social protest, tackling issues such as institutional racism and labor rights during a time of heightened scrutiny and repression. In the late 1940s, his past affiliation with the Communist Party led to investigations by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, resulting in censorship of his work. In 1948, he relocated to Hawaii, where he found a more accepting environment but faced ongoing racial tensions. There, he operated a paper supplies company while writing a column for the *Honolulu Record*, confronting contemporary social issues. After a period of relative obscurity, his work experienced a resurgence during the Black Arts movement in the 1960s. Davis passed away on July 26, 1987, and his unfinished work, *Livin' the Blues*, was published posthumously in 1992.
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Subject Terms
Frank Marshall Davis
Poet
- Born: December 31, 1905
- Birthplace: Arkansas City, Kansas
- Died: July 26, 1987
- Place of death: Honolulu, Hawaii
Biography
Frank Marshall Davis was born in Arkansas City, Kansas, on December 31, 1905. His parents divorced when he was a year old. When he was five, several older white boys attempted to lynch him. Thus began his early, though short-lived, hatred of all whites, a hatred reenforced by schoolteachers and classmates who repeatedly denigrated his race. When, at the age of eight, Davis heard the musical forms of blues and jazz, he recognized in them something that had always been a part of him. He would later experience a similar kinship with free verse in college.
In 1924, he moved to Wichita, Kansas, and took journalism classes at Friends College. He then attended Kansas State Agricultural College in Manhattan, Kansas. In an English course there, he was given the option of either writing an essay or a poem. He chose the latter, thinking it would be an easier path to meeting the course requirements. The professor reacted to the poem with such enthusiasm that young Frank began writing in earnest.
In January of 1927, he moved to Chicago and became an editor and columnist with the Chicago Evening Bulletin. His skills led him to work with at least a dozen newspapers over the years, in various capacities, as editor, news and sports reporter, critical analyst, political columnist, theater and jazz critic, and photographer. He never stopped writing poetry, however; after a stint at an Atlanta paper, he moved back to Chicago, where, in 1935, he published his first collection, Black Man’s Verse.
While a part of the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) of the New Deal federal government’s Works Progress Administration (renamed in 1939 the Works Projects Administration, WPA), he befriended noted writers Langston Hughes and Richard Wright. In 1937, Davis received a grant from the Julius Rosenwald Foundation and continued to work on his poetry while earning a living as a journalist. In 1945, he taught one of the first courses in the United States on jazz history at the Abraham Lincoln School in Chicago.
Davis’s poetry of social protest was sometimes viewed as too direct, taking issues head-on and lacking subtlety. He wrote of discrimination, blasting away at institutional racism, anti- labor views, unfair labor practices, loyalty oaths, and segregation in the workplace and in the military at a time when the country’s climate was least forgiving of radicals. Therefore, in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, when the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) was at its most potent, Davis’s earlier brief affiliation with the Communist Party made him a prime candidate for investigation, and many of his works were removed from libraries and schools.
In 1948, during a visit to Hawaii with his second wife, white Chicago socialite Helen Canfield Davis, he decided that he wanted to remain there. It seemed a place where blacks were treated fairly and where ethnic and racial diversity flowered. His interracial marriage did not attract as much attention as on the mainland, and though he lost the status of celebrity that he had come to enjoy in Chicago, he found Hawaii much less fraught with tension. Bigotry was still in evidence, but it was less obvious. The various ethnic groups of whites, blacks, Chinese, Japanese, and native Hawaiians were often in conflict, and segregated housing was still enforced, even in the military; but he still was afforded greater respect and acceptance as a man than he had found stateside.
Since he could not possibly earn a living as a writer, and since he was still hounded by red-baiting, Davis opened and operated a paper supplies company. A labor newspaper, the Honolulu Record, carried his highly influential column, Frank-ly Speaking, in which he addressed the social ills of the day, notably the injustices, the HUAC witch hunts, the abuses of power in big business and government, unemployment, the enforcement of loyalty oaths, and militarism.
Divorced for a second time, Davis continued raising his five children and writing. His works were rediscovered in the 1960’s during the Black Arts movement, allowing him to return to being an active literary figure. He died in Honolulu on July 26, 1987, and his unfinished work, Livin’ the Blues, was published posthumously in 1992.