How three alumni in the class of 1963 are helping create a lasting legacy in honor of an Amherst trailblazer
In 2017, the Asa J. Davis, Leon B. Gibbs '63 Scholarship Fund was created and named for Amherst’s first chair of the Black Studies department. As is often the case with gifts of this kind, the idea was actually formed several years earlier in 2014 when Leon Gibbs ’63 emailed two of his Amherst classmates—Bill Davis and Hugh Price—about how to create a 55th Reunion gift that would be meaningful to them and have a lasting impact on the College.
Over the next three years they worked to establish the scholarship fund, and eventually opened it to the class of 1963 and other donors. Along the way, the classmates have had many discussions about the fund—including about whom to honor in its name. Davis, Gibbs and Price ultimately agreed to pay tribute to Asa J. Davis, professor of history and black studies, who played an instrumental role in the launch and success of the Black Studies department.
Professor Davis joined the faculty in 1970 and served as the first chair of the newly formed Department of Black Studies, created a year earlier after a series of events on the national scale and at Amherst galvanized students to take action. A student-organized Black Arts Festival, scheduled for April 5, 1968, transformed into a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. after his assassination a day earlier. That event marked the beginning of a series of impassioned conversations and significant changes that led to the inclusion of black studies in the Amherst curricula.
At the time, many other colleges and universities around the country were creating Black Studies departments as well, but there was no clear blueprint for what the field of study should be. Professor Davis played a vital role in setting the vision and ensuring the success of Amherst’s department.
Calvin Plimpton ’39, then president of Amherst, recruited Davis to join the Amherst faculty and chair the department. Prof. Davis immediately envisioned Black Studies as an interdisciplinary major. The 1970-71 course catalog introduced the department’s first two courses “An Introduction to Black Studies” and “African Elements in Brazil, Latin America and the Caribbean,” along with 20 related courses available for inclusion in the major through nine other departments—from English, to economics, to history, to political science. By 1976, the department’s faculty had increased to five, and courses offerings had expanded considerably alongside many interdisciplinary options.
Davis taught at Amherst until his retirement in 1992. He received numerous research awards and published extensively on topics pertaining to the history of Africa and Europe during the Colonial period. He was the author of several books, including The King's One Body: Symbol of Ethiopian Nationality, and Viagem Emafrica. A World War II veteran, Davis graduated from Wilberforce University in Ohio, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Harvard Divinity School, and then received a Ph.D. in history, philosophy and religion from Harvard. Before arriving at Amherst, Davis served as a senior lecturer at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, at San Francisco State University, and at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He passed away at the age of 77 on Sept. 28, 1999.