Belva Davis, Bay Area broadcasting trailblazer, dies at 92
By Brandon Downs
Belva Davis, a Bay Area broadcasting trailblazer, died at 92 on Wednesday morning after a long illness.
Davis was the first African-American woman to become a television news reporter on the West Coast when she was hired at KPIX in 1966.
She spent three decades working as a reporter and anchor for KPIX.
Davis covered all kinds of news, politics and culture. She was not shy to place herself at the heart of the story, no matter where it took her.
“I had learned to write because I was writing for JET magazine and weekly newspapers,” she said during a 2018 interview. “And I learned to speak because I was on radio stations, you know, giving the news or doing women’s news or whatever I was allowed to do on radio. So, you put the two together, and so all I had to learn to do then was stand still for the camera.”
She covered the likes of Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King Jr., the Hearst family, and she even traveled to Cuba and met with Fidel Castro. Davis covered countless other big stories.
Being a barrier breaker was not without its costs. Davis said she was often asked to leave news conferences because people couldn’t believe that she, a Black woman, was a real reporter.
“It made for an exciting day, because I never knew whether I’d benefit by being female and black, or whether I would be ridiculed,” she said.
Over the course of her TV career, Davis earned multiple Emmy Awards and became one of the most respected journalists in the country.
She went on to work at two other Bay Area television stations until her retirement.
Her family told KPIX she died Wednesday morning after a long illness, though her name and her legacy will no doubt leave their mark on journalists for decades to come.
“From the moment I met Belva Davis as a young student at Mills College, she was a steady source of inspiration, guidance, and friendship for me,” Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee said in a statement. “My deepest condolences go to her husband, William Moore, her children Steven and Darolyn, and to everyone whose lives were touched by her extraordinary spirit.”
