Preserve past, Davis exhorts youths

Writing. Storytelling. Singing.

The Rev. France Davis of Salt Lake City's Calvary Baptist Church doesn't care how you preserve history, but he wants you to do it.

"If you don't know where you came from, you'll miss where you're going," the Rev. Davis said Saturday.

He spoke about the importance of history in a keynote address during the fifth annual African-American Family History Research Series.

"We need to keep track of who we are so future generations have something to build up from," he said to the audience at the Family History Library.

Future generations, he said, are suffering because they lack a historical understanding of the world. When he recently asked teenagers about what events in the 1960s they knew about, they said none.

The Rev. Davis knows the history during that time period because he was right in the middle of it. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and heard him deliver his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

"Those were magnificent times, but kids today have no idea of what life was back then," the Rev. Davis said.

His own personal history is also worth noting. He lived during the separate-but-equal days, when everyone at his school was African-American — except the superintendent.

"He would show up once a year to chat with the principal, briefly walk through the school and promptly disappear," the Rev. Davis said.

When he graduated from high school, he took the $27.50 his dad had given him and took a bus to seek a college he could enroll in. He enrolled in college, but not just one. Taking 75 credit hours at once, he earned degrees from Laney College, the University of California, Merritt College, Westminster College and the University of Utah.

He later earned a sixth degree at Northwest Nazarene College.

His strategy: writing essays on similar subjects and going to sleep before 10 p.m. As for how he paid for housing, the Rev. Davis applied for as many scholarships as he could, enough to buy a new car every other year. He repeatedly applied and received the home economics female graduate student scholarship.

"I was the only one who would apply, so I got it every time," he said.

He is now an adjunct professor of communication at the University of Utah and has authored several books, including his autobiography, "France Davis: An American Story Told."

"The storytelling days are over and we need to keep writing, rather than spending time with iPods and video games," he said. "Somebody needs to tell our story so future generations have something to hold onto."

Phyllis Caruth, Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society chapter president, said history gives youths pride about where they came from.

"Our history is being lost as we speak," Caruth said. "Future generations need to know where they came from. Otherwise, our heritage will not be carried on."

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E-mail: abreton@desnews.com