DAVIS, J. STEWARD (11 October 1890–disappeared 15 April 1929) lawyer and political activist; one of the most he argued forty-eight cases. Davis was also a campaign organizer, chairing the committee to elect W. Ashbie Hawkins, a prominent Baltimore civil-rights activist and litigator who was put forth as a senatorial candidate by a group of independent African American Republicans in 1920. Of his political activism Davis said, “It is time that we look after our own political affairs, and not entrust them to whites who are indifferent to our welfare.”
Davis was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1890. After graduating from Harrisburg High School he attended Dickinson College, where he completed a two-year program and then went on to study law, graduating first in his class in 1916. He was the first person of color to be valedictorian at Dickinson. He moved to Baltimore that same year and was promptly admitted to the bar, though his fledgling law practice was soon disrupted by the United States’ entry into World War I. Davis was sent to France as a sergeant and spent eighteen months in the army, ending his military career as an instructor at Camp Zachary Taylor near Louisville, Kentucky. Upon his return to Baltimore his law practice flourished. In 1920 Davis married Blanche Moore, a schoolteacher, and they had two children. During the 1920s he established himself as one of the most well-respected trial lawyers in Baltimore and worked with many prominent attorneys, including W. Norman Bishop, Warner T. McGuinn, and George W. Evans.
On the morning of April 15, 1929, Davis left home to go to work at his office as per usual but never arrived there. His family initially kept his disappearance a secret; the first public mention of it occurred only in mid-May, in the Baltimore Afro-American. The local bar association began an investigation, which revealed that Davis had bought a train ticket to New York City the day of his disappearance and had stayed that night at the 135th St. YMCA in Harlem. He was last seen the following morning when he checked out.
The circumstances surrounding Davis’ disappearance were murky, and many unsubstantiated rumors circulated. The most persistent was that Davis had misappropriated money from a case and had fled to avoid punishment. Though the Baltimore Afro-American reported this rumor in September 1931, the story was never corroborated. Several people claimed to have seen Davis after his disappearance, but his friends, family, and colleagues never heard from him again.