Group of men from Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, Los Angeles 1940s

Item Overview

Title

Group of men from Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, Los Angeles 1940s

Photographer

Merriman, Ted

Date Created

[1940s?]
1940/1949

Language

No linguistic content

Collection

Walter L. Gordon, Jr./William C. Beverly, Jr. Collection

Notes

Summary

Herbert Simmons, Jr., was an attorney, admitted to the bar in 1949. He was Chairman of the Los Angeles NAACP and promoted civil rights his law practice, such as enforcement of anti-segregation in seating on public transport. He was a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
Don (Donald Angelo) Barksdale was a basketball player. While at UCLA, he became the first African American named All-American in 1947. He was also the first African American to play on the U.S. Olympic basketball team, in the 1948 Summer Olympics. He later went on to play basketball in the NBA, with the Baltimore Bullets and Boston Celtics.
Joe Oliver played basketball at Hollywood High School in 1938-1939 and was active in the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity in the 1940s, as reported in the Los Angeles Sentinel.
Dewey Daniel Davidson was a prominent African American businessman in Los Angeles, proprietor of the largest mercantile store west of Chicago. He was also very active in the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, serving for some years as the regional director. He was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which lead some to call him by the nickname "T-Town." He was the husband of Sadie Louise Davidson.

Description

All information concerning the content and description of the image was provided by Walter Gordon.
Back row: Herbert Simmons (far left); next to him is a man identified as Parks (first name unknown). Also in back row: Don Barksdale (4th from left), Dewey "T. Town" Davidson (1st from right), and Joe Oliver (3rd from right). The others in the photograph are unidentified.

Physical Description

Extent

1 photograph : b&w

Keywords

Genre

Black-and-white photographs

Names

Barksdale, Don, 1923-1993
Simmons, Herbert W., Jr., 1920-2004
Oliver, Joe, b. 1922 or 23
Davidson, Dewey D., 1898-1981

Location

California--Los Angeles

Resource type

still image

Subjects

African American men
African American fraternal organizations--California--Los Angeles