She has won eight Emmy Awards and been recognized by the American Women in Radio and Television and National Association of Black Journalists.
[1] Davis accepted a freelance assignment in 1957 for Jet, a magazine focusing on African-American issues, and became a stringer for the publication.
Over the next few years, she began writing for other African-American publications, including the Sun Reporter and Bay Area Independent.
[5] In 1961, Davis became an on-air interviewer for KSAN, a San Francisco AM radio station broadcasting a rhythm and blues music format, targeting black listeners in the Bay Area.
[1] She worked as a disc jockey for KDIA, a soul-gospel radio station (also based in Oakland) when the 1964 Republican National Convention, located at the Cow Palace in nearby Daly City, California, inspired her to become a reporter.
[6][7] It would not be the last time she encountered racism on the job: In 1967 she covered a march during the Civil Rights Movement in Forsyth County, Georgia, and attempted to interview a white woman who spat in her face.
[5] She became the first female African-American television journalist on the West Coast when she was hired by KPIX-TV, the CBS affiliate based in San Francisco, in 1966.
[3] She spent the next three decades working for KPIX, becoming an anchorwoman in 1970,[5] and a few years later moved to the local NBC affiliate, KRON-TV.
[1] Stories she covered include the Berkeley riots of the Free Speech Movement, the Black Panthers, the mass suicide-murder at Jonestown, the Moscone–Milk assassinations, the AIDS and crack epidemics, and the 1998 United States embassy bombing in Tanzania.
In the foreword he contributed for her 2010 autobiography, Bill Cosby wrote she also had symbolic value to the African-American television audience, as "someone who sustained us, who made us proud."
[12] She has received lifetime achievement awards from the American Women in Radio and Television and National Association of Black Journalists.