L. Clifford Davis | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1924-10-12)October 12, 1924 Wilton, Arkansas, U.S. |
| Died | February 15, 2025(2025-02-15) (aged 100) Fort Worth, Texas, U.S. |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupations |
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| Spouse | Ethel Weaver (died 2015) |
| Children | 2 |
L. Clifford Davis (October 12, 1924 – February 15, 2025) was an American attorney whose unsuccessful efforts for admission to theUniversity of Arkansas Law School resulted in the eventual admission of African-American students to the school. He also served over thirty years as an attorney and judge, and assistedThurgood Marshall in theBrown v. Board of Education case.
L. Clifford Davis was born inWilton, Arkansas, on October 12, 1924.[1] Since the town's educational opportunities for black students ended in the eighth grade, Clifton attended high school atDunbar High School inLittle Rock, where his parents began renting a home.[1] He graduated fromPhilander Smith College in 1945, where he studied business.[1] The state paid tuition for Davis to attend a school out of state to avoid having him in a classroom with white students, but when Davis realized the higher cost of living at Howard University inWashington, D.C. far outweighed the cost of tuition, he insisted on applying to U of A. In 1947, after applying to the University of Arkansas Law School for two years, he was granted admission under the circumstance that he would not be allowed to enter a room with white students in it, including classrooms, the library and the restrooms. Davis instead completed his law degree atHoward University in 1949 and then returned to Arkansas.[1]
Davis passed the bar and set up a practice inPine Bluff, Arkansas.[1] In 1952, he moved toWaco, Texas, to teach atPaul Quinn College. He took and passed the bar exam in Texas and in 1954 became one of only two black lawyers inFort Worth, Texas.[1] In 1956, he filed a federal lawsuit which resulted in a court order for integration of the public schools inMansfield, Texas, although the threat of violence from white students kept those schools segregated for some time. In 1959, inFlax v. Potts, he won a suit forcing the Fort Worth schools to integrate.[2] He organized the Fort Worth Black Bar Association in 1977.[3] In 1983, GovernorMark White appointed him to a judgeship in criminal district court.[4][5] He continued to serve as a judge until he lost an election in 1988, then continued as a visiting judge until 2004.[2]
Awards and honors included theNAACP’s William Robert Ming Award, the Blackstone Award (the highest honor given by theTarrant County Bar Association), theNational Bar Association Hall of Fame, and a Lifetime Achievement award from Texas Lawyer. An elementary school inFort Worth, Texas, bears his name.[3] In 2017, at age 92, theUniversity of Arkansas School of Law granted him an honorary doctorate, in place of the one he was denied in 1949.[6]
Davis and his wife, the former Ethel Weaver (d. 2015), had two children.[1] He was a member of aUnited Methodist Church in Fort Worth.[7]
Davis died at a Fort Worth nursing home on February 15, 2025, at the age of 100.[1][8]