Foreword by Bill Cosby
Chapter 1: “ What the Hell Are You Niggers Doing in
Here?”
Chapter 2:Up from Troubled Waters
Chapter 3: Truth Isn't What You Want to See
Chapter 4: Strained Mercies
Chapter 5: In the Driver's Seat
Chapter 6: Vapors and Black Ink
Chapter 7: Lucky 13
Chapter 8: Lend Me a Tiara
Chapter 9: Dreams Deferred
Chapter 10: New Station in Life
Chapter 11: His-and-Hers Gas Masks
Chapter 12: Ringside at the Racial Revolution
Chapter 13: Freeze Frames
Chapter 14: A Woman's Touch
Chapter 15: When Work Hits Home
Chapter 16: White Night and Dark Days
Chapter 17: Diversified Interests
Chapter 18: Going Global
Chapter 19: Special Reports
Chapter 20: Never in My Wildest . . .
Gratitudes
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Authors
Belva Davis currently hosts This Week in Northern California on San
Francisco's KQED. She has received eight local Emmys and many other
awards, including honors from the International Women's Media
Foundation and the National Association of Black Journalists.
Vicki Haddock is a journalist and was a senior writer at the San
Francisco Chronicle as well as a reporter and assistant city desk
editor for the San Francisco Examiner.
“I was not asked to write a blurb for Up From Slavery, War and
Peace, or The Fire Next Time, but gladly I can say Never in My
Wildest Dreams is a very important book. No people can say they
understand the times in which they have lived unless they have read
this book.”
—Dr. Maya Angelou
“Belva Davis has lived this country’s history as only a brave black
woman could and has witnessed it as a journalist with a world-class
head and heart. I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to read her
words without becoming a better and braver person.”
—Gloria Steinem
“Never in My Wildest Dreams shows what it really takes to succeed
as a black woman in the journalistic world in America. A must
read.”
—Willie L. Brown, Jr., Chairman and CEO, Willie L. Brown Institute
and former Mayor of San Francisco
"This fascinating book is a must-read for all and a welcome
addition to the history of journalism."
—American Journalism
“After a friendship of over thirty years, it’s astonishing to find
from this reveal- ing, heartbreaking, and inspirational book that I
knew so little about the pro- found and historic forces that shaped
Belva’s life.”
—Phil Bronstein, Editor-at-Large, Hearst Newspapers
“An engaging memoir that includes not only a fascinating childhood
and com- ing-of-age in the deep south and the Oakland projects, but
also involvement in some of the most important happenings of the
mid-20th century.”
—School Library Journal
“The remarkable odyssey of Belva Davis is a compelling testament to
tenacity and truth. As a pioneering black journalist, she was
determined to tell the sto- ries that mainstream news outlets had
ignored for too long—and she devoted her career to ensuring that
the voices of all Americans became part of our na- tional
conversation. This fiercely honest memoir reveals that her struggle
was never easy, but helping change the world never is.”
—Andrew Young, Former Ambassador to the United Nations, Chairman of
GoodWorks International, LLC
“Risk-averse people do not make good journalists. Belva Davis
entered the pro- fession during the 1960s when virtually every good
story required risk-taking. Belva has lived on the edge of history
over the last fifty years in some of its most dangerous places. And
she got the stories, including her own. Never in My Wildest Dreams
is the chronicle of her march through the second half of the
twentieth century as a great black woman journalist.”
—Howard Dodson, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in
Black Culture
“Good writing is a combination of two things: good thoughts and
good prose. Belva Davis tops that. She gives us tough journalism
clothed in the tender lyri- cism of a true poet who journeys to the
depth of the human heart.”
—Abigail Rosen McGrath, Founder of Renaissance House
“An engrossing account of triumph over adversity. Never in My
Wildest Dreams is a valuable contribution to the pre- and post-WWII
history of blacks in the Bay Area and a fascinating exploration of
the determination that carried Belva Davis far beyond her
impoverished childhood and local reporting work to the ranks of the
nation’s most respected journalists.”
—Jewelle Taylor Gibbs, Professor Emerita, University of California
at Berkeley
"She clawed her way into the white male-dominated news industry,
climbing her way up despite the most unlikely of profiles: black,
female, short of stature, equipped with a soft voice and no
college degree, for years herself a single mother.....As a woman
and an African-American, Davis said she always felt the pressures
of blazing a trail for others. She constantly worked to master her
emotions, in order to present the public face of the consummate
professional newswoman— confident, imperturbable and scrupulously
objective. Inside, she was afflicted by hurts and humiliations,
fears and anxieties that she could never let show....Her memoir,
written with political journalist Vicki Haddock, is both a personal
narrative and a modern political history of the Bay Area,
California and, at times, the nation."
—Jerry Roberts , Calbuzz.com
“With the publication of her new memoir, groundbreaking San
Francisco-based journalist Belva Davis takes us on an
awe-inspiring personal journey that navigates the upheavals
that have reshaped broadcasting, race and politics in
America.”
—Carla Marinucci, political reporter, San Francisco Chronicle
"With bracing candor, Belva Davis shares the story of her
extraordinary, gutsy, against-all-odds journey from a poor chaotic
upbringing in Louisiana, through the pioneering days of TV
journalism, to the respected position she occupies today. Meet a
truly remarkable woman."
—Judy Woodruff, coanchor, The PBS NewsHour
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