"[2] Although Davis was a gifted grammar school student, he was also required to help contribute to the family household during the summers by working at a black resort on the Chesapeake Bay.

After graduating from Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in 1922, Davis spent a year attending Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he then transferred to Columbia College in New York City.

As the first integrated school that he attended, Davis recalled the oppressive responsibility of the move in his autobiographical essay "Columbia College and Renaissance Harlem": I felt that the whole 'race' rode on my poor weak shoulders, that somehow if I failed, I would be letting down all Negroes.

However, in his second year, Davis was able to find a job as a counselor with the Children's Aid Society on East 127th Street thanks to a Hampton connection.

Davis looks back on this experience stating, "As an undergraduate I naturally did not fully understand the significance of the events happening around me, but I did get the feel of the times.

"I had a ringside seat", he recalled in his "Columbia College and Renaissance Harlem" essay, "on the events of those stirring and exhilarating years it was bliss to be alive in those days.

"[2][4] Davis graduated as a Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia College in 1927, which made him only the second black student to receive this honor.

Davis states, "Harlem was a Nigger Heaven to my provincial eyes; and there were thousands of other migrants like me who felt the charm of the black ghetto.

Including James Weldon Johnson, Wallace Thurman, Paul Robeson, Richard Bruce Nugent, Ethel Waters, and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, as well as important political and intellectual figures like Marcus Garvey and W. E. B.

In his first ten years at Howard, Davis became a prolific advocate of black literary endeavors, publishing at least 34 articles, reviews, and miscellaneous critical works.

Co-written with J. Saunders Redding, Davis states the purpose of the anthology was to "provide a representative selection of as much as possible of the best prose and poetry written by Negro Americans since 1760.

The anthology references and critiques various literary works from important Harlem figures such as Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Sterling Brown and Alain LeRoy Locke.

Davis reminds the Negro college student that he must remember the opportunity to obtain a higher education is not one to be taken for granted; those that came before him fought and died for this right.

Therefore, as Davis concludes, he challenges the Negro student to take responsibility and continue the legacy of black scholarship that was laid before him by his ancestors.