J. Mason Davis

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J. Mason Davis and family on the cover of the June 17, 1974 issue of TIME.

J. Mason Davis Jr (born July 30, 1935 in Birmingham) is an attorney and partner in Dentons Sirote

Davis completed a bachelor's degree at Talladega College in 1956, and a juris doctorate from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1959.

Davis opened his own practice in Birmingham in 1960, initially specializing in civil rights cases. He was one of 23 Black members of the Community Affairs Committee that was assembled in 1963 to address community issues in Birmingham. He took on fellow Talladega college alumnus Houston Brown in 1973 in a partnership known as Davis & Brown.

In 1974 Mason and his family were photographed by Alwyn Scott Turner for the June 17 cover of Time magazine, illustrating a feature story entitled "Middle-Class Blacks: Making it in America."

After Brown went out on his own in 1981, Davis was recruited by Edward Friend Jr to join Sirote & Permutt as a litigator. The firm was acquired by the global law firm Dentons in 2021.

Davis has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Alabama School of Law from 1972 to 1997. He served a one-year term as president of the Birmingham Bar Association in 19841985. He also chaired the board of trustees for Talladega College from 1981 to 1988 and served on the Alabama State Bar's Board of Bar Commissioners from 1987 to 1996. He was chair of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce in 20002001 and chair of United Way of Central Alabama in 20022003.

Davis was a member of the Alabama State Democratic Executive Committee and served as secretary of its board of directors from 1978 to 1997. Davis was given a Lifetime Achievement in Human and Civil Rights by the NAACP in 2013.

He also served on the corporate boards of Bruno's, Energen and the Bermuda-based reinsurer Enstar Group. He was inducted into the Birmingham Business Hall of Fame in 2016.

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