
When parents name their offspring after U.S. presidents, they are hoping for greatness. But an inevitable question arises: Can those children live up to such great names?
Abraham Lincoln Davis – known as the Rev. A.L. Davis – certainly did.
In addition to being the first vice president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), he was the first Black person since Reconstruction to serve on the New Orleans City Council.
“Davis was actively involved in politics and civil rights in New Orleans, establishing the Orleans Parish Progressive Voters League in 1949,” the Amistad Research Center states. He also was “heavily involved in the New Orleans merchant boycotts and sit-ins of the early 1960s.”
Born Nov. 2, 1914 in Bayou Goula, La., Davis moved to New Orleans in 1930. He lived with his sister while he attended McDonogh No. 35 High School. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Leland College and a theological degree from Union Baptist Theological Seminary.
In 1935, Davis became pastor of New Zion Baptist Church, where SCLC was founded in 1957. He was pastor for 43 years.
Mayor de Lesseps “Chep” Morrison appointed Daivs as the city’s first director of race relations in 1961. Davis also served on the state’s first Commission on Race Relations, Rights and Responsibilities, and the Union Passenger Terminal Board.
As a civil rights activist, Davis led thousands in a Sept. 30, 1963 march on City Hall to protest segregation. In November 1963, he was arrested during a City Hall sit-in.
In 1975, Davis was appointed to replace Council member Eddie Sapir, who became a city judge. Davis won the 1976 special election to complete that term, but did not retain the seat. He lost the 1977 election to Jim Singleton.
At 63, Davis died from pancreatic cancer on June 24, 1978. In 1979, the park near New Zion was renamed to Rev. A.L. Davis Park.
For more tales from New Orleans history, visit the Back in the Day archives.