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WEST POINT — At 6 p.m. EDT on Friday, Feb. 25 the City of West Point will present a Black History Month program. It will be a virtual event locally broadcast on BeeTV. The Rev. Frederick Davis of Durham, North Carolina will be the featured speaker.

Davis was recently honored by the City of Lanett for his role in getting Chambers County to change from at-large to district voting. This greatly improved the chances for African-Americans to hold elective office. Davis and his wife were living in Lanett at the time, and he was the pastor of the St. John Baptist Church on Cherry Drive. He is now at the Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina, where he has been in pastoral service for more than 30 years.

Davis is a native of Deland, Florida and grew up in Fort Lauderdale. He attended and graduated from the public school system in Broward County, Florida.

Davis graduated from Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina, earning a B.A. degree (magna cum laude) in philosophy and religion. He continued his studies at the International Theological Center, Morehouse School of Religion in Atlanta, where he earned a masters of divinity degree and later an honorary doctorate of divinity.

In a recent ceremony at Lanett City Hall, Davis said that St. John Baptist in Lanett would always be a special place to him because it was where he got his start in preaching. Many long-time members of St. John were there to witness the presentation.

Before moving on to North Carolina, Davis pastored a church in Huntsville, Alabama.

Davis has been at Mount Calvary Baptist since 1991. In order to address the challenges presented by Durham’s West End community, Pastor Davis in 1993 formed a non-profit organization known as the West End Community Foundation, Inc. He has served as its chairman for the past 24 years. He has also served two terms as a member of the Durham City School Board. He enjoys golf, loves music and is an avid table tennis player. In 2017, he was a gold medalist in the Durham Senior Games.

When he received an award from the City of Lanett on Feb. 14, Davis also received a framed proclamation from the Chambers County Commission. At that ceremony, Commissioner Charlie Williams said he could remember playing table tennis with Pastor Davis at his home in the 1970s when he was at St. John Baptist.

“He was a really good player,” he said.