The John Abraham Davis Saga: An Intimate History of Racism and Resilience in the US Civil Service, 1862–1928

Abstract

This essay tracks the life and career of John Abraham Davis (1862–1928) as he navigated the perilous racial politics of the US civil service during the “nadir” of race relations. It shows how patronage helped Davis contest racial discrimination during Republican administrations, only to then be weaponized by the Woodrow Wilson administration in order to harass, demote, and segregate Black civil servants like Davis. By relying on notions of fairness and efficiency to justify their white supremacist project, Wilson and his appointees quietly laid the groundwork for modern color-blind forms of racism. The costs were immense. The Davises spiraled into poverty and surrendered much of the wealth they had built up since the Civil War. However, Davis’s protests and his family’s later successes—his sons W. Allison Davis and John Aubrey Davis became pioneering social scientists—also exemplified the growing organization and resistance of the Black community in Washington, DC, and beyond, which only accelerated during the twentieth century.