page_title: John Warren Davis (college president)
section_title: Extension Service and State 4-H Camp for African Americans
hierarchical_section_title: John Warren Davis (college president) / President of West Virginia State College / Extension Service and State 4-H Camp for African Americans
caption_attribution_description: English: Great Chestnut Lodge at w:Camp Washington-Carver Complex in w:Clifftop, West Virginia. This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 80004017
context_page_description: John Warren Davis was an American educator, college administrator, and civil rights leader. He was the fifth and longest-serving president of West Virginia State University in Institute, West Virginia, from 1919 to 1953. Born in Milledgeville, Georgia, Davis relocated to Atlanta in 1903 to attend high school at Atlanta Baptist College. He worked his way through high school and college at Morehouse and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1911. At Morehouse, Davis formed associations with John Hope, Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, Samuel Archer, Benjamin Griffith Brawley, Booker T. Washington, and W. E. B. Du Bois. He completed graduate studies in chemistry and physics at the University of Chicago from 1911 to 1913 and served on the faculty of Morehouse as the registrar and as a professor in chemistry and physics. While in Atlanta, Davis helped to found one of the city's first chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
  Davis served as the executive secretary of the Twelfth Street YMCA in Washington, D.C., from 1917 to 1919 when he was elected as the president of West Virginia Collegiate Institute.
context_section_description: Under Davis' leadership in the 1930s, West Virginia State College and its Extension Service were part of a movement to provide educational outdoor and recreational activities for West Virginia's African American youth. This movement received West Virginia Board of Control funding from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) when the West Virginia Legislature established Camp Washington-Carver in 1937 near Clifftop in Fayette County. The 583-acre (236 ha) African American 4-H camp was constructed by the WPA between 1939 and 1942 and under Davis' leadership. The camp was transferred from the West Virginia Board of Control to West Virginia State's Extension Service in 1942. Camp Washington-Carver was formally dedicated on 26 July 1942 in a ceremony attended by Davis. At the 4-H camp, West Virginia State's Extension Service offered instruction to African American children and adolescents in the subjects of agricultural education, soil conservation, home economics, and 4-H values. Later in 1949, the West Virginia Conservation Commission consulted Davis on the name for a state recreational area for African Americans near Institute, and following his recommendation, the Conservation Commission selected the name, Booker T. Washington State Park.
caption: Great Chestnut Lodge, Camp Washington-Carver Complex
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