Neil Owen Davis (1914-2000), a native of Hartford, Alabama (Geneva County) majored in English/journalism at Alabama Polytechnic Institute (Auburn University) and graduated with a bachelor of science degree in 1935.

From 1934 to 1935, he served as student editor of the Auburn campus weekly The Plainsman.

After brief stints with the Dothan Eagle (Alabama), the Northwest Georgia Journal (Rossville), and the Southwest Georgian (Fort Gaines) following graduation, he returned to Auburn and established the Lee County Bulletin (later Auburn Bulletin) in February 1937.

In November 1938, he married Columbus, Georgia native Henrietta Worsley (1914-1987), also a journalist and 1935 graduate of Alabama Polytechnic Institute. Henrietta became an associate editor of the Bulletin. The couple had three children, Katherine, Lee, and Owen.

He was awarded a Nieman Fellowship in 1940 and studied at Harvard University from 1941 to 1942. When the United States entered World War II, he went to Washington DC to volunteer for service in Army Intelligence. Following three years of service with the Army’s Office of the Assistant Chief of Air Staff Personnel, he was reassigned to the War Department’s General Staff, Legislative and Liaison Division and served until September 1945.

While serving in Washington DC, Davis, a liberal Democrat, became acquainted with a number of prominent people including Justice Hugo Black, Senator Lister Hill, Aubrey Williams, and Clifford and Virginia Durr.

After returning to Auburn, Davis continued to edit and publish the Lee County Bulletin. In 1947, he was elected president of the Alabama Press Association. In 1949, he purchased a one third interest in WAUD, a local radio station. As the issue of civil rights took center stage in the 1950s and 1960s, Davis continued to make the Bulletin a voice of southern liberalism. In the 1950s, he called on the public to accommodate desegregation. By the 1960s, he openly defended the constitutionality of equality for people of all races and creeds. Davis’ editorials were reprinted in the New York Times and other newspapers across the country.

In July 1964, he purchased the Tuskegee News. The editorials in both the Bulletin and the Tuskegee News were nominated for Pulitzer prizes in 1960 and 1967. In May 1963, Davis and others lunched at the White House with President John F. Kennedy. Davis served on a number of committees and boards throughout his life.

In 1950, he was elected to the Alabama State Democratic Executive Committee. He was reelected in 1954, but lost his bid for a fourth term in 1956. From 1951 to 1955, he served on the Alabama State Board of Pardons and Paroles. He also served on the Alabama Ethics Commission from 1979 to 1984 and on the Agnes Scott College board of trustees. In the 1950s, while Dr. John H. Leith was pastor of Auburn First Presbyterian Church, Davis’ faith became grounded in a modified form of the social gospel. He served as a church elder and taught Sunday school.

In 1969, he helped found the Presbyterian Community Ministry. A member of the Board of Christian Education from 1959 to 1968, he also served on the United States Presbyterian Church’s Committee on a New Confession of Faith in the 1970s. His concern for the poor and the cause of education was also reflected in his service on President Lyndon B. Johnson’s National Advisory Commission on Rural Poverty from 1966 to 1968. In June 1975, he sold the Auburn Bulletin and the Tuskegee News and he and Henrietta retired. After his retirement, Davis taught journalism at Auburn University from 1976 to 1980 and remained active in civic life. Henrietta W. Davis died November 7, 1987 at age 73. Neil O. Davis died June 7, 2000 at age 85.