Davenport, James Clinton

Impact on the world

Co-founded the National Society of Black Physicists in 1977 alongside Walter E. Massey, serving as its first secretary-treasurer, while chairing Virginia State University's physics department for over three decades, during which the department produced more Black physicists than every other institution in Virginia combined.

Life & background

Born in the segregated rural community of Sardis in Bullock County, Alabama, Davenport was educated in segregated public schools before earning his bachelor's degree from Tuskegee University and his master's and doctorate in physics from Howard University. He joined Virginia State University's physics department in 1967, chairing it for all but two years of his tenure until his 2003 retirement, during which it produced more Black physicists than every other institution in the state combined, and he coordinated Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory's minority-focused summer internship program from 1973 to 1994, working alongside Nobel laureate Leon Lederman. In 1977 Davenport co-founded the National Society of Black Physicists with Walter E. Massey at a time when fewer than 200 Black Americans held physics PhDs nationwide, serving as its first secretary-treasurer. He received the White House Initiative Faculty Award for Excellence in Science and Technology in 1988 and became the first Virginia State faculty member honored with the state's Outstanding Faculty Award in 1994.

Sources

1. Encyclopedia of Alabama; National Society of Black Physicists