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Walter Strother Davis (August 9, 1905 – October 1979) was an American football coach and college administrator. He was the second president of Tennessee State University, a historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1943 to 1968.

Early life

Davis was born on August 9, 1905, in Canton, Mississippi. He graduated from Tennessee A&I (later known as Tennessee State University) with a bachelor's degree 1931, and attended Cornell University, where he earned a master's in 1933 and a Ph.D. in 1941.

Career

Davis was the eighth head football coach at Tennessee A&I State College—now known as Tennessee State University—in Nashville, Tennessee and he held that position for four seasons, from 1933 until 1936, compiling a record of later 19–7–4.

Davis served as the second president of Tennessee State University from 1943 to 1968. His tenure saw significant expansion, including the construction of "70 percent of the school's facilities", the establishment of the graduate school and four other schools, and "15,000 degrees awarded."

In 1960, Davis served on a committee chaired by Madison Sarratt to put an end to the Nashville sit-ins.

When a race riot occurred on the TSU campus after Stokely Carmichael spoke in Nashville on April 8, 1967, Davis deplored that his efforts to bring social mobility regardless of racist oppression had failed.

Personal life and death

Davis married Ivanetta Hughes in 1936. They had a son, who became a physician. Davis owned a ranch in Dickson, Tennessee.

Davis died at a Nashville hospital in 1979 of a long illness.

References

1. ^ "Dr. Walter S. Davis". library3.tnstate.edu. Retrieved January 4, 2015.
2. ^ "Black History Month: Walter Davis helped build TSU while president". The Tennessean. February 11, 2015. Retrieved December 18, 2017.
3. "Tennessee State Coaching Records". cfbdatawarehouse.com. Retrieved January 4, 2015.
4. Lloyd, R.G. (1962). Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State University, 1912-1962: fifty years of leadership through excellence, 1912-162. Retrieved January 4, 2015.
5. Houston, Benjamin (2012). The Nashville Way: Racial Etiquette and the Struggle for Social Justice in a Southern City. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. pp. 106–107. ISBN 9780820343266. OCLC 940632744.
6. ^ Frizzell, Scott (Spring 2011). "Not Just a Matter of Black and White: The Nashville Riot of 1967". Tennessee Historical Quarterly. 70 (1): 26–51. JSTOR 42628733.
7. ^ "Rites Tomorrow for Dr. Davis". The Tennessean. October 19, 1979. p. 19. Retrieved December 18, 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
8. Jet. Johnson Publishing Company. 1979. ISSN 0021-5996. Retrieved January 4, 2015.

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