ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, June 18, 1996 TAG: 9606180067
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: FREDERICKSBURG
SOURCE: Associated Press
When Lawrence Davies arrived in Fredericksburg in 1962, the idea of a black candidate winning an election for mayor was laughable.
At the end of this month, Davies, a black man, steps down as mayor. It's a post he has held since 1976 - longer than anyone else in the city's history.
``He could have had the office for as long as he wanted it,'' said Ferris Belman, who served on City Council when Davies' political career began and is now on the Stafford County Board of Supervisors.
When Davies, 65, first came to Fredericksburg to serve as pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church, only 300 blacks were registered to vote.
The city government had just one black employee - a young man starting out in the public works department.
James Monroe High School didn't fully integrate until 1968 - 14 years after Brown vs. the Board of Education - and there was considerable racial tension with integration.
In 1966, Davies became the first black man to win election to City Council, and spent a decade there.
By 1976, he had built a power base of blacks and progressive whites that carried him into the mayor's office by eight votes.
``No one really, truly can appreciate the magnitude of Lawrence's achievements without understanding Fredericksburg and what was going on 20 years ago,'' said Douglas Wilder, who became the first black governor of Virginia more than a decade after Davies was elected mayor.
``You're talking about a very difficult transition,'' Wilder said.
Davies said the accomplishments he's proudest of were getting blacks to vote and seeing blacks become players in city government.
He said he believes that Fredericksburg blacks now ``feel they are part of the mainstream rather than being outsiders.''
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