Acclaimed Poet and Journalist Frank Marshall Davis Was a Member of Phi Beta Sigma

Did you know that pioneering journalist and poet Frank Marshall Davis was a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.? Davis was initiated in 1925 while studying journalism at Kansas State Agricultural College, now Kansas State University, and he carried his membership card in his wallet for the rest of his life.

Frank Marshall Davis was born on December 31, 1905, in Arkansas City, Kansas, where he came of age amid the harsh racism of the era. At Kansas State, he wrote his first poem for a class assignment and was encouraged by an instructor to keep going. He soon fell under the spell of free verse and the muscular, plainspoken poetry of Carl Sandburg, whom he called his greatest influence.

In 1927, Davis joined the Great Migration to Chicago, where he wrote for a string of Black newspapers. A few years later he moved to Atlanta and, as managing editor, helped transform a struggling paper into the Atlanta Daily World, the nation’s first successful Black daily. Returning to Chicago, he published his acclaimed debut poetry collection, Black Man’s Verse, in 1935, followed by I Am the American Negro and 47th Street.

Davis became a central figure of the Black Chicago Renaissance, joining the South Side Writers Group alongside Richard Wright and Margaret Walker, and his poetry earned support from the Works Progress Administration and a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship. A lifelong advocate for justice, he used his journalism to press for the integration of professional sports and to champion working people. In 1945, he taught one of the first jazz history courses in the country, at Chicago’s Abraham Lincoln School.

In 1948, Davis moved to Honolulu, where he continued writing and organizing for decades. Though his literary reputation faded for a time, a new generation rediscovered him during the 1960s Black Arts Movement, which hailed him as a pioneer of Black poetry. Frank Marshall Davis died in 1987 at the age of 81, leaving a body of work that reflects the Phi Beta Sigma motto, “Culture for Service and Service for Humanity.”

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