THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2024 49 Joining the Foreign Service During his time with Black Star, Davis developed the trust and a professional friendship with President of Liberia William V.S. Tubman. As he finished editing Liberia’s first promotional film, “Pepperbird Land” (1952), John W. Davis (not related), first director of the Point Four program of the U.S. diplomatic mission there (and a 1911 Morehouse classmate of Davis’ father, Philip M. Davis) encouraged Davis to apply for employment with the U.S. government and do “picture stories.” After passing the Foreign Service exam in the summer of 1952, Davis and his newlywed wife, Muriel Corrin Davis, returned to Liberia that November. As the first information officer and audio/visual adviser of the U.S. embassy in Monrovia, he, along with two other Morehouse College graduates, John W. Davis and Robert Kitchen, became one of the pioneers of President Truman’s program for foreign aid. Under the initial leadership of the first African American ambassador, Edward R. Dudley, the program was established worldwide during the Jim Crow era, in part due to their efforts. In this capacity, Davis ultimately became a trailblazer for Black Americans in the U.S. Foreign Service. (Forty-two of Davis’ photographs of U.S. Embassy Monrovia under the leadership of Ambassador Dudley are included in the PBS American Experience/Flowstate Films documentary “The American Diplomat” that aired in February 2022.) Davis’ Influence Through Images In Liberia (1952-1957) and the newly independent Tunisia (1957-1962), Davis assisted the governments in establishing their respective ministries of information and broadcasting. During Davis’ years in Liberia, President Tubman commissioned him to do a one-man exhibition of 100 images about Liberia, titled “Liberia 1952,” at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. This was at a time when African Americans were not allowed to show in that museum. He also commissioned Davis to do a two-page picture story on Gold Coast (Ghana) Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah’s visit to Liberia for Time magazine’s Feb. 9, 1953, edition and four documentary films: the official inauguration films of 1952 and 1956 of President Tubman for the government of Liberia; “Progress Through Cooperation,” on Liberia’s agricultural development program in 1957; and the aforementioned “Pepperbird Land,” the first promotional film of Liberia (and possibly any noncolonized African country at the time). “Pepperbird Land” was narrated by then-unknown actor Sidney Poitier. The film was distributed to all of Liberia’s embassies around the world and remains a classic. During this period of President Tubman’s presidency, Davis took a total of 7,000 images of Liberia. From 2009 to 2011, U.S. Ambassador to Liberia Linda Thomas-Greenfield displayed four of those photographs in her residence through the Art in Embassies program. In 2012, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield permanently installed them in the new U.S. embassy she christened that year. In attendance, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf reflected: “Most Liberians have fond memories of Muriel and Griffith, who did so much to promote the historical memories of Africa’s first independent nation through Griffith’s remarkable photography.” Before ending his tour of duty as a Foreign Service officer in Liberia, Davis was assigned by U.S. Information Service headquarters in Washington, D.C., to be the official photographer for the U.S. delegation led by Vice President Richard Nixon to Official commissioned photograph of President William V.S. Tubman (at left) and Prime Minister of Gold Coast (Ghana) Kwame Nkrumah in Monrovia, Liberia, in January 1953. ©GRIFF DAVIS/GRIFFITH J. DAVIS PHOTOGRAPHS AND ARCHIVES
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