Journalist, Ex-El Cerritan Belva Davis to Retire

Former El Cerrito resident and well-known Bay Area journalist Belva Davis, the first black woman hired as a television news reporter in the western United States, has announced she’s retiring.

Davis spent over four decades reporting for Bay Area media outlets, most recently for KQED. She covered many top stories, including the Berkeley student protests, the birth of the Black Panthers, the assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, and the AIDS epidemic.

Last year, Davis published an autobiography, Never in My Wildest Dreams, with co-author Vicki Haddock. She talked about the book and her life in an interview with Diablo magazine.

Davis was born to a 15-year-old Louisiana laundress in 1932, and her family moved before World War II to the West Coast, settling first in Oakland and then in El Cerrito. She now lives in San Francisco and spends part-time in Petaluma.

She has won eight local Emmys and a number of Lifetime Achievement awards – including honors from the International Women’s Media Foundation, the National Association of Black Journalists', and the Northern California chapter of the National Association of Television Arts and Sciences.