Belva Davis Diversity Scholarship

The AWRT Belva Davis Diversity Scholarship was established in 1999 by Jackie Wright, Golden Gate Chapter President at the time, to honor veteran journalist Belva Davis. Davis was the first minority woman in the nation to join AWRT. She also received the Golden Gate Chapter Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999. Students in their senior year of high school or in collegue who are pursuing a career in broadcast journalism are eligible for the scholarship. Students' work should exemplify social justice and interest in the advancement of women and minorities.

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Belva Davis Bio:

Belva Davis is an award-winning journalist who has covered Bay Area politics for three decades. She was the first African American woman hired to work on Television in the western United States She was the first woman of color to join the American Women in Radio and Television. Davis is now one of only 500 journalists nationally to be profiled in the NEWSEUM, the world's first interactive museum of news.

Davis got her start as a reported for Black owned newspaper and was the women's editor for the San Francisco Sun Reporter. Her probing community based reporting has won her lifetime achievement awards from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences; Northern California Chapter, the Naitonal Association of Black Journalists, the Peralta Community College District and her alma mater Berkeley High School. She has earned six local Emmy's for her reporting and two honorary Doctorates for her television work and community service, first from John F. Kennedy and a second from Golden Gate University.

Belva Davis started her television career at KPIX, the CBS affiliate in San Francisco, before moving to KQED the public television station, where she anchored the nightly news. For nearly two decades she worked as a reporter and program host for KRON TV, the former NBC affiliate in the Bay Area. She is currently the host of KQED's Friday night current affairs program, This Week in Northern California and a special assignment reporter for KRON.

Davis is the recipient of numerous community service awards for her volunteer work on behalf of a wide variety of causes. As the National Equal Employment Opportunities chair of AFTRA, the television union, she has spent countless hours advocating for women, minorities, and the disabled.

Belva Davis, is a founding member and the board president of the Museum of the Disapora in San Francisco (www.moadsf.org). Davis is also a trustee of the Fines Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Fort Mason Foundation, The Glide Church Foundation, Blue Shield of California, and National Vice of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.