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Dr. Arthur Paul Davis (November 21, 1904 – April 21, 1996), was an influential, African-American university teacher, literary scholar, and the author and editor of several important critical texts such as ''The Negro Caravan'', ''The New Cavalcade'', and ''From the Dark Tower: Afro-American Writers 1900-1960''. Influenced by the Harlem Renaissance, Davis has inspired many African-Americans to pursue literature and the arts. ==Early life and education== Arthur P. Davis was born on November 21, 1904 in Hampton, Virginia. He was raised by his parents, Frances Nash Davis and Andrew Davis along with his three brothers. In an autobiographical essay entitled “Columbia-College and Renaissance Harlem-Autobiographical Essay”, Davis describes his father, who worked as a plasterer, as an authoritarian figure, “a Victorian head-of-the-house but also an excellent parent.” Although Davis was a gifted grammar school student at the Hampton Institute,he was also required to help contribute to the family household during the Summers by working at a black resort on the Chesapeake Bay. After graduating from high school in 1922, Davis spent a year attending Howard University in Washington D.C. where he then transferred to Columbia College in New York City. As the first integrated school that he attended, Davis recalled the oppressive responsibility of the move in his autobiographical essay “Columbia College and Renaissance Harlem”: “I felt that the whole ‘race’ rode on my poor weak shoulders, that somehow if I failed, I would be letting down all Negroes. Many Negroes of my generation assumed that attitude when they attended Northern white schools. It helped to make us more competitive.” Despite having a scholarship, Davis boarded with a family in Harlem and needed to earn money for his room and board. Davis sought work from city politician Charlie Anderson, (who was married to Davis’s cousin, Emma Anderson,) as well as from a close associate of Booker T. Washington, Davis was only able to acquire menial jobs such as a late night apartment-house elevator boy and an unsuccessful stint as a houseboy in a Park Avenue mansion. However, in his second year, Davis was able to find a job as a counselor with the Children’s Aid Society on East 127th Street thanks to a Hampton connection. Davis looks back on this experience stating, "As an undergraduate I naturally did not fully understand the significance of the events happening around me, but I did get the feel of the times." Davis attended Columbia during the most active years of the Harlem Renaissance. “I had a ringside seat,” he recalled in his “Columbia College and Renaissance Harlem” essay, “on the events of those stirring and exhilarating years it was bliss to be alive in those days.” 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Arthur P. Davis」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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