L. Clifford Davis

The Honorable Judge L. Clifford Davis entered rest on February 15, 2025.

L. Clifford Davis was born in 1924 to the parentage of Augustus and Dora Davis, in Wilton (Little River County), a farm community in southwest Arkansas.  His parents owned a small farm and rented additional land to cultivate. The children were taught Christian values, to work, manage their time, income and assets, and to love and to support each other.   With parents as role models, Clifford and his siblings learned about an entrepreneurial mindset and self-sufficiency. Their parents were advocates for education; due to restrictions on secondary education for African Americans in the County, they ultimately rented a home in Little Rock, Arkansas so that the children could go there, live together and attend high school, with the supervision of their fraternal Aunt, Mary Kelley.  Six of the seven children finished Dunbar High School in Little Rock and with Clifford the youngest of the seven, he also moved there in his teens to complete his high school years at Dunbar.  All his beloved siblings have proceeded him in death.

Clifford graduated from Dunbar in January 1942, and Philander Smith College in May 1945 with his bachelor’s degree.  He entered the illustrious Howard University Law School the year 1945-46 then attended Atlanta University to study economics 1946-47 while he sought admission to the University of Arkansas Law School. During this period, when the law school considered his conditional admission based on discriminatory financial requisites and separate instruction practices, Davis declined the offer yet set in motion opportunity to crack open the door for admission of blacks to the university’s various professional schools without court litigation. He returned to Howard in the fall of 1947, graduated in June 1949, and was admitted to the Arkansas Bar in July 1949, to start his legal practice the next month. Under the tutelage of Attorney Harold Flowers in Pine Bluff, Clifford began to focus his early career on civil rights and desegregation litigation.  

In 1952, Clifford moved to Texas and taught business courses at Paul Quinn College in Waco while establishing residency in Texas to take the Texas Bar.  He was admitted to the Texas Bar in 1953, came to Fort Worth to practice in 1954.  He opened the first solo practice for a black lawyer, in the historic downtown 9th Street business district, as a branch office partnered with Dallas legal trailblazers C.B. Bunkley and Louis A. Bedford.

Clifford was married to his striking, dear wife, Ethel R. Weaver Davis for 59 years who proceeded him in death in 2015; to this union two daughters, Avis and Karen were born.

Davis’ preeminent marker on the North Texas community was in the pursuit of equality, where he played a pivotal role in desegregating the public schools of Mansfield and Fort Worth Independent School Districts.  

He had been an active advocate for civil rights, in Arkansas and Texas working for integration in the public schools, opening wider job opportunities, elections participation and holding public office among minorities, as well as for open housing and ‘civil responsibility’ for the greater good and welfare of our communities’ total population. Elected as the first black judge of a (state) district court Tarrant County in 1984, he served two decades as a District Judge, including service as a SeniorVisiting Judge before retirement.  

Davis has garnered several dozens legal, civic, and community service awards.  His 100th centenary year in 2024 was marked with dozens more “Lifetime Achievement” and “Legal Legend” awards.  Culminating on his birthday, October 12, 2024, the greater DFW community applauded wildly his commitment, contributions, and community spirit.