While ethnicity should not be a deciding factor when it comes to selling or purchasing a new car (or anything else), this year’s North American International Detroit Auto Show is the perfect time to remember the late Ed Davis . Davis is a bold African-American man who forged a racist and racist path during the Jim Crow era to become one of Detroit’s historic car dealers.
The story of Ed Davis as a pioneer in car sales begins in the mid-1930s and interweaves the ups and downs of a time when blacks began to enter the burgeoning manufacturing and assembly sectors of the auto industry; It wasn’t. Spectrum sales end. But as a dealership owner, Davis found his own way to persevere in pursuit of his automotive dreams. First he was in 1939, and then again in 1963.
“I was the first black dealer among the Big Three’s 25,000 dealers,” Davis wrote in his fascinating autobiography. One Man’s Way, “When I decided to go out of business in 1971, I was one of Chrysler’s most active dealers, selling about 1,000 new cars and twice as many used cars a year at the Chrysler Plymouth dealership. I was there.”
Born in 1911 in Shreveport, Louisiana, Davis moved to Detroit in his early teens to live with relatives and pursue a quality education. In Detroit, young Davis shined shoes and washed cars. He became obsessed with the big, flashy cars that came in for exterior and interior cleaning. Thanks to luxury cars, Davis dreamed of not only owning a new car, but one day selling it to blacks and whites alike. He was often laughed at for having the audacity to sell new cars to white people in the mid-1920s, at a time when no other black people in Detroit, or anywhere else in the country, were selling new cars across racial lines. Ta.
Davis graduated from Cass Technical High School, which he described as an excellent vocational institution that taught him a lot about business. Undeterred by his post-graduation ambitions, this teenage dream slowly began to unfold. In his autobiography, Davis wrote about Merton L. Lumpkins, a white man who was a regular customer at Davis’ car wash. Lumpkins, a supervisor at the Dodge factory in Hamtramck, liked Davis’ work ethic and offered him a job at the auto assembly plant. Davis, in his late teens, was hired for 27 cents an hour, a high salary in the late 1920s.
In 1936, Lumpkins opened Merton L. Lumpkins Chrysler Plymouth, a new car dealership in Highland Park, and Davis, 25, agreed to sell cars only to black people and refrain from selling cars. He was hired as a part-time salesman. Main sales floor.
“I couldn’t work with white salesmen on the showroom floor,” Davis wrote. “I was told that if I worked on the floor, I would be seen by white prospective buyers and that it would hurt my business…I worked in a warehouse on the second floor to work only with black customers. I was given space.”
After outperforming white salespeople, Davis was allowed to work on the showroom floor, but he did not fit in with them or their white customers. Nevertheless, Davis’ sales acumen was undeniable to management, who probably realized that blacks didn’t matter, only greens did.
In 1938, Davis planned to start his own car dealership in Detroit, despite the difficulties. However, according to his autobiography, Davis opened a used car dealership, Davis Motors Sales, at 421 East Berner Highway near downtown Detroit on December 4, 1939, amid racism and intimidation. ” was established. He then acquired the new Studebaker car dealership, becoming the first African American in the country to own a Studebaker franchise. At the time, Studebaker was the leading car brand.
“While business was very strong in the early 1950s, by mid-1953 Studebaker dealerships began to lose money,” Davis writes. “Our sales had been running at about 500 cars a year, but they were down 30%. Studebaker was having serious financial problems. I decided to give up the Studebaker franchise.” In April 1956, I sent a letter to the company terminating the contract.
Davis then brokered a deal to become a sub-dealer and vice president of Floyd Rice Ford, one of Detroit’s largest Ford dealerships.
“I started selling Fords and it did very well,” Davis wrote.
But Davis wanted a new challenge: running a new car dealership. On November 11, 1963, Davis acquired Chrysler for his Plymouth dealership and became the first black person in the world to own that dealership. Davis opened a dealership on Dexter and Elmhurst streets on Detroit’s west side, near where he and his wife, Mary Agnes Davis, lived on Chicago Boulevard.
Davis consistently placed advertisements in local newspapers. michigan chronicle, to promote his new dealership. His core message in the ad was: Ed Davis’ Chrysler Dealership is Always Competitive and Good Citizenship is Our Business, Too!
Davis has made empowering the Black community a priority. After the July 1967 Detroit riots, he was instrumental in organizing job training classes in partnership with Dexter Boulevard Redevelopment.
“I had now decided that the way to help people was to prepare them to take advantage of the economic opportunities that were opening up,” Davis wrote. “Employment means economic power.”
On February 26, 1971, Davis closed his Chrysler Plymouth dealership, writing, “The time has come to move on to new challenges and responsibilities.”
From 1971 to 1974, Davis was a top executive at the Detroit Metropolitan Railroad Authority (DSR). He ultimately returned to strategizing how best to advocate on behalf of African Americans and other minorities to win more car dealerships across the United States. Davis is one of the founders of the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers (NAMAD), an advocacy organization he founded in 1980 to promote diversity and inclusion throughout the auto industry. NAMAD is comprised of Black, Latino, Hispanic, and Asian/Pacific Islander auto dealers.
Over the years, Davis has earned numerous awards and honors for his excellence as an auto dealership owner and community leader. In 1969, he received the Benjamin Franklin Quality Dealer Award, times magazine Awarded excellent dealer award. That same year, the Detroit Auto Show honored him with its highest honor for his work as a Detroit dealer. In 1996, Davis became the first African-American to be inducted into the automotive industry’s Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn, Michigan.
Ed Davis passed away on May 3, 1999. But it’s been 60 years since he opened the nation’s first black new car “Big Three” dealership in 1963, and he now has 313 black franchises, selling all brands of new and used cars. We are selling.
“Ed Davis is a true legend. His photo is on the Founder’s Wall here at NAMAD headquarters in Largo, Maryland,” said NAMAD President Perry Watson IV. michigan chronicle. “He was at the forefront of paving the way for the black auto dealers you see today, breaking down barriers not just for African Americans but other minorities and women.”