Belva Davis—first Black woman hired as TV journalist on West Coast—dies at 92

Davis remained on West Coast airwaves for over five decades, breaking barriers and glass ceilings along the way. 

Legendary, Emmy-award winning journalist Belva Davis, who broke barriers by becoming the first Black woman television journalist on the West Coast, has passed away, according to the Bay Area’s KQED. She was 92. 

Davis’ career spanned decades and generations and included covering stories as diverse and varied as the 1964 Republican National Convention and the Jonestown massacre in Guyana. She covered political assassinations like that of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person to be elected to public office as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She interviewed iconic figures like Coretta Scott King and Fidel Castro and took on issues important to her Bay Area community. 

It was her coverage of the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco for area radio station KRON—and the racist treatment and abuse she experienced from other members of the media—that led to her desire to break into television. She wrote about the realization that television journalism was key to telling stories and expanding the reach of the Black community in her 2011 memoir, “Never In My Wildest Dreams: A Black Woman’s Life in Journalism.” 

 “Journalists were beginning to bring the stories of Black Americans out of the shadows … and into the light of day. They were reporting on the cross burnings and water hosings, the beatings and lynchings, in vivid details that the public could no longer ignore. I wanted to be one of them.”

She got that opportunity in 1966, when she joined San Francisco’s KPIX, becoming the first Black woman television journalist on the entire West Coast of America. She worked at KPIX from 1966 to 1977, when she joined KQED where she remained until she retired in 2012—a legendary career that spanned over 50 years, cementing her name as a journalist of renown and a blueprint for legions of journalists coming up behind her. 

Born Belvagene Melton in Monroe, Louisiana, in 1932, she and her family relocated to Oakland, California, when she was a child. She graduated from the area’s Berkeley High School in 1951, the first in her family to realize that achievement. Though she was accepted into San Francisco State University, finances kept her out of the school, though theydid not deter her from finding her way into journalism. In 1957, she began writing freelance articles for JET magazine, and took other jobs writing for local Bay Area publications before breaking into radio and eventually television. 

Along with her on-air work, Davis was also a very active member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists union, at one point serving as vice president. She earned eight Emmy Awards and won lifetime achievement awards from the National Association of Black Journalists and American Women in Radio and Television, a marker of a career that made a difference in the lives of all those who were reached and touched by her stories and storytelling.  

Davis is survived by her husband Bill Moore, two children from her first marriage, Darolyn Davis and Steven Davis, and a granddaughter, Sterling Davis.  

Rest in Power, Belva Davis.