Belva Davis Biography
Belva Davis is a television and radio journalist from the United States. She is the first African-American woman to work as a television reporter on the West Coast of the United States.
When was Belva Davis born? -Age
She was born Belvagene Melton on October 13, 1932, in Monroe, Louisiana, United States of America. Melton is 90 years old as of October 2022.
Belva Davis Family
Belvagene Melton was born and raised, in Monroe, Louisiana, to John and Florence Melton. She is the eldest of four siblings. Belva was born when her mother was 14 years old, and she spent her early years living with various relatives.
Belva Davis Husband- Married
On January 1, 1952, Belva married Frank Davis. They had two children and one grandchild. Davis met her second husband, Bill Moore while working at KPIX-TV in 1967. Davis and Moore used to live in the Presidio Heights neighborhood in San Francisco, but they currently live in Petaluma, California.
Belva Davis Career
In 1957, Davis accepted a freelance assignment for Jet, an African-American-focused magazine, and became a stringer for the publication. She was paid $5 per item and had no byline. She continued writing for additional African-American magazines, including the Sun Reporter and the Bay Area Independent, during the next few years. Davis was the Sun Reporter’s editor from 1961 to 1968. Davis began working as an on-air interviewer for KSAN, a San Francisco AM radio station that broadcasted a rhythm and blues music genre to black Bay Area listeners in 1961. She made her broadcast debut in 1963, covering an African-American beauty pageant for KTVU, an Oakland-based television station. In 1964, she was a disc jockey for KDIA, an Oakland-based soul-gospel radio station.
During the Civil Rights Movement in Forsyth County, Georgia, in 1967, she covered a march and sought to interview a white woman who spat in her face. In 1966, Davis worked as an announcer for KNEW, an AM radio station in Oakland. When she was hired by KPIX-TV, a CBS station in San Francisco, in 1966, she became the West Coast’s first female African-American television journalist. She spent the following three decades at KPIX, where she rose to the position of anchorwoman in 1970 before moving to the local NBC station, KRON-TV. She covered the Berkeley Free Speech Movement riots, the Black Panthers, the Jonestown mass suicide-murder, the Moscone-Milk killings, the AIDS and crack epidemics, and more.
In 2010, she wrote her autobiography, Never in My Wildest Dreams: A Black Woman’s Life in Journalism. Bill Cosby noted in the foreword to her 2010 autobiography that she had symbolic value to the African-American television audience as “someone who sustained us, who made us proud.” He added, “We looked forward to seeing her prove the stereotypical ugliness of those days to be wrong.” Beginning in the 1990s, Davis anchored “This Week in Northern California” on PBS member station KQED. She left the company in November 2012. Her final broadcast contained a taped interview with a close friend, Maya Angelou because she wanted the theme of her final show to be friendship.
Davis received eight Emmy nominations from the San Francisco/Northern California chapter. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha on an honorary basis. She has been honored with lifetime achievement honors from American Women in Radio and Television and the National Association of Black Journalists. She has received honors from the American Women in Radio and Television and the National Association of Black Journalists, in addition to eight Emmy Awards.
Belva Davis Net Worth
Davis has an estimated net worth of 5 million dollars.