Never in My Wildest Dreams: A Black Woman's Life in Journalism

Never in My Wildest Dreams is the story of a courageous journalist who helped change the face and focus of television news. Born to a 15-year old Louisiana laundress during the Great Depression and raised in the overcrowded projects of Oakland, California, Belva Davis overcame abuse, racism, and sexism to become the first black female news anchor on the West Coast.

Davis covered many of the most explosive stories of the last halfcentury, including the birth of the Black Panthers, the Peoples Temple cult that ended in the Jonestown massacre, the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk, the onset of the AIDS epidemic, and the terrorist attacks that first put Osama bin Laden on the FBI’s
Most Wanted list. Along the way, she encountered a cavalcade of cultural icons: Malcolm X, Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Nancy Reagan, Huey Newton, Muhammad Ali, Alex Haley, Fidel Castro, and others.

Davis’ absorbing memoir traces the trajectory of an extraordinary life in extraordinary times.