Fellows

In Memoriam

Larry E. Davis, PhD

Inducted in 2013

Bio

Dr. Larry E. Davis – the former Dean of the School of Social Work, the founding Director of its Center on Race and Social Problems and the inaugural Donald M. Henderson Professor at the University of Pittsburgh – died at home on March 30 following a decades-long battle against cancer. He is survived by his wife, Kim Armstrong Davis, and by three adult sons – Keanu, Naeem and Amani Davis, as well as by an extended family of nephews, nieces, cousins and dear friends. He was preceded in death by his parents Clara Pearl Davis and Kires Davis, his sister Clara M. DeGroat, and two brothers Lamar Davis and LaVonne G. Davis.

Dr. Davis dedicated his career to the creation of solution-based dialogues that create a more racially equitable society. His academic work focused on the study of race, civil rights and social justice and was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Science Foundation. He had long been recognized as one of the leading scholars of race in America. In commenting on this focus, he wrote, “Race is what I always have thought most about. In fact, I have been thinking about race as long as I can remember thinking about anything.” Becoming more specific, he remembered asking himself, as a young boy, “If we (black people) were slaves, why are they (white people) angry with us?”

That question became the title of his most recent book, Why Are They Angry With Us? Essays on Race, which has been published by the Oxford University Press. The inviting and thoughtful tone of that book reflects one of the distinctive qualities that Dr. Davis brought to all of his work. He possessed a unique ability to raise difficult issues in ways that led others to want to listen and learn.

Dr. Davis was born in Michigan to parents who had escaped the oppression of Jim Crow-era Alabama.  More of his high school classmates went to prison than to college.  Fortunately, given all that he went on to contribute and accomplish, Dr. Davis was in the latter group.  He earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Michigan State and a master’s degree in social work from the University of Michigan.  He then joined VISTA and spent three years working in one of New York City’s poorest neighborhoods.  Afterward, he returned to the University of Michigan, where he earned a second master’s degree, in psychology, and became the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. from its dual degree program in social work and psychology.

He was invited to join the faculty of the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, one of the top-ranked schools in the country.  He became the first African-American in any discipline to be awarded tenure at that university, where he also was named the E. Desmond Lee Professor of Racial and Ethnic Diversity.  He was recruited to the University of Pittsburgh in 2001 to serve as Dean of its School of Social Work, and he led the school to a top-ten ranking.  He also was named the first Donald M. Henderson Professor and was the founding director of Pitt’s Center on Race and Social Problems, the first center of its type in any American school of social work.

You may read the rest of the obituary here.