Stewardship & Legacy on “The Hill”

Stewardship and Legacy on “The Hill”

By T. DeWayne Moore, Ronald Lorenzo, Jacob Boisrond, Evelyn Todd, & Kennedy Frank

The front of this postcard shows the Abner Davis Memorial Light, a photograph of Abner Davis, and the Woolfolk Building on PVAMU campus circa 1960/70s [Postcard image courtesy of the Abner Davis Family]

The back of this postcard refers to Abner Davis as a “Gridiron Hero” and “a tower of strength in the hearts of all who knew him.” No date accompanies this postcard, but the Advertising Specialty Company of Austin, Texas clearly made this postcard prior to the 1986 installation of the bust, which now adorns the top of the memorial. [Postcard image courtesy of the Abner Davis Family]

On October 16, 2026, the descendants of Abner Davis drove to Prairie View A&M University to meet with students, staff, and faculty working with the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab to discuss how their ancestor’s memory can help shape the university’s future. The visit included cleaning the Davis memorial as well as a long conversation about a financial gift to the WDPL and the establishment of an annual Abner Davis Stewardship Day in late October. Each part of the day addressed a shared responsibility: helping students understand the history they inherit and giving them meaningful opportunities to care for it.

Abner Davis was a Prairie View football player who suffered a devastating injury during a Thanksgiving Day game against Texas College in 1927. He died on December 5. His classmates and teammates worked to keep his memory present on campus, and successive generations added their own acts of remembrance. The memorial on “The Hill,” near the George Ruble Woolfolk Building, belongs to that history of collective care.

That history gives the memorial significance beyond its physical form. It preserves evidence of how Black students understood friendship, loss, and their obligations to one another. Students who remembered Davis insisted that his life should remain part of Prairie View’s story. Their actions created an inheritance that today’s students encounter whenever they pass through this historic part of campus.

Meeting his descendants made the responsibilities attached to that inheritance especially clear. A name on a memorial connects to a family whose relationship to the past extends beyond university records. Their presence brought family memory into conversation with institutional history. For the WDPL, such relationships are essential to responsible public history. Families deserve opportunities to help shape how their histories are researched, interpreted, and carried forward.

The cleaning of the Davis memorial gave that responsibility a practical expression. In 2022, student researcher Malachi McMahon described noticing its neglected condition and learning how to clean and maintain it. His published account connected that effort to earlier generations of Prairie View students who cared for the site. Returning to the memorial continues a tradition in which students learn that preservation requires attention and action.

Malachi McMahon cleaning the Abner Davis memorial with a bristle brush and cleaning solution.

Malachi McMahon cleaning the memorial in 2022

Cleaning also prompts questions that belong in the classroom. Who created this memorial? Why did they choose this location? What records explain its changing appearance and meaning? Who will care for it next year? Those questions connect physical stewardship to historical inquiry. A student who understands the people behind a monument has a stronger basis for recognizing its value and explaining that value to others.

At the WDPL, we describe this relationship through a simple principle: Research is Respect. Respect becomes visible in the time devoted to identifying a person in a photograph, preserving a fragile document, or listening carefully to a family’s account. It also becomes visible when someone recognizes that a familiar campus landmark needs care. Yesterday’s visit brought these responsibilities into the same conversation.

Plaque located on the front of the Abner A. Davis monument.

The plaque installed by the PVAMU class of 1930

The Abner Davis Memorial in 2022

Our discussion of a potential financial gift to the WDPL grew from this concern for lasting stewardship. The opportunity is to connect the preservation of Davis’s memory with the education of students who will become responsible for protecting other histories. Philanthropic support could help provide the training, materials, and student opportunities necessary to sustain that work.

A gift could support paid student research, archival processing, digitization, and public interpretation. It could help students investigate the memorial’s history, locate additional records, and share their findings with the Davis family and the wider university community. These possibilities remain part of a developing conversation about support. The purpose is to build a durable relationship between family remembrance, historical preservation, and student learning.

Paid opportunities matter because preservation takes time. Students need supervision and practice to learn how to describe records accurately, handle materials responsibly, and distinguish documented evidence from assumptions. Supporting that work makes historical stewardship a serious educational undertaking. It also recognizes the value of student labor and helps prepare participants for future work in archives, museums, education, and community organizations.

The annual Abner Davis Stewardship Day will give this commitment a recurring place in campus life. It will encourage students to become better stewards of Prairie View’s legacy and historical resources. Davis’s memorial will provide a focal point for a broader invitation to learn about the university, recognize the significance of its surviving historical evidence, and participate in its care.

The vision combines remembrance with supervised service and historical learning. Activities could include appropriate care for memorial spaces, research presentations, archival demonstrations, and conversations with descendants and alumni. Students could document the condition of historical resources, investigate the origins of campus traditions, or develop interpretive materials. Each activity should connect a practical task to an understanding of why the resource matters.

An annual observance also creates continuity as students graduate and new students arrive. Participants can leave research notes, documentation, and clear records of completed work for those who follow. Over time, Stewardship Day can help make preservation an expected part of belonging to Prairie View. The aim is to cultivate habits that students carry into their organizations, professions, and home communities.

Abner Davis Family and Stewardship Day _ 6

The Descendants of Abner Davis and WDPL stewards after cleaning the memorial in 2026

An idea originally proposed by Human Resources specialist Ali Afzal, Abner Davis Memorial & Stewardship Day should also connect student participation with consistent institutional support. Reliable coordination and follow-up will help ensure that the care begun during an annual gathering continues throughout the rest of the year.

The Davis family’s involvement gives this work a vital human connection. Their interest in the memorial and the WDPL demonstrates how descendants can help universities strengthen relationships between historical research and public responsibility. Sustaining that relationship will require continued conversation, careful planning, and opportunities for the family to participate as the initiative develops.

Abner Davis Family and Stewardship Day _ 4

The Descendants of Abner Davis and WDPL stewards after cleaning the memorial in 2026

Yesterday’s meeting connected a family’s enduring concern for Abner Davis with the work of preparing another generation to care for Prairie View’s history. The memorial cleaning, gift discussion, and annual Stewardship Day belong to that shared effort. We invite students to approach the campus with curiosity and a willingness to contribute. Learning the names, understanding the records, and caring for the places are ways to honor those who came before us while leaving future Panthers a richer, more accessible historical inheritance.

To read more about Abner Davis, check out the 2022 digital exhibition of Malachi McMahon and Ronald Lorenzo’s chapter in The Hill We Climbed: Prairie View A&M University, edited by Will Guzmán and William T. Hoston (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2026).

Paying Respect at the Abner A. Davis Memorial

The Abner A. Davis Memorial has existed in one form or another on “The Hill” in front of the George Ruble Woolfolk Building at Prairie View A&M University since his death in December 1927. As a student at PVAMU, I have taken many walks across campus to get from my room in University Village Phase 3 to my morning classes. Since I lived at the back of campus, I had to pass Mr. Davis and the fountain quite often. Though I passed his memorial on numerous occasions, I never really took the time to learn about the history of the memorial or the man. This blog post intends to shine a light on a “gentleman, clean sport, athlete and ideal student,” as one former teammate referred to him, as well as the history of historic preservation and memorialization at PVAMU.

A picture of the Abner Davis memorial from the side — The Abner A. Davis Memorial on “The Hill” at PVAMU
(Photo: T. DeWayne Moore, 2022)

Abner A. Davis was a member of the varsity football team at Prairie View A&M University in 1927. The Panthers were especially good that year. In an October 15, 1927 issue of the student newspaper, one writer exclaimed: “Never before in all footballdom at the college did the Prairie View Panthers show better form and finer spirits than have been shown this season. Vigorous, springy, and full of grit and fighting determination, the Panthers will be greatly disappointing to everybody if they do not smash and stop every gridiron machine that confronts them.” To view the entire article, please click HERE

In a game against Texas College the following month, Davis went to make a tackle on the opposing team and was severely injured during the play. He was hit in his neck by the offensive player’s knee, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. Since his injury came in the middle of an away game, the Panthers finished playing the game and carried Davis back to campus. It’s unclear whether or not the team was victorious.

The doctor who treated Davis from November 24 through December 5 stated that he suffered from “paralysis” stemming from the “fracture or displacement of the 3[rd] & 4th cervical vertebrae.” While the doctor confirmed his diagnosis with an X-ray, Davis underwent no surgery prior to his demise on December 5. According to his death certificate, Hempstead undertaker E.L. Watson removed his remains for burial to the city of Eagle Lake, Texas on December 8.

The death certificate of Abner Davis. — The death certificate of Abner A. Davis (Texas Department of State Health Services; Austin Texas, USA)

In his memoir, Down Memory Lane: The Story of Edward Bertram Evans, Sr. and the Early History of Prairie View A & M University, former university president and professor of veterinary science and medicine Edward Bertram Evans claims that the final remains of Abner Davis were laid to rest in his hometown of Spanish Camp, a small hamlet that sits an estimated ten miles outside of Wharton, Texas. Spanish Camp is located about 22 miles southeast of Eagle Rock. Indeed, the exact location of his grave remains the subject of debate. In a March 12, 2012 article in the Beaumont Times titled, “Where’s Abner?,” David Lisenby reported that the librarian at the Alma M. Carpenter Public Library in Sour Lake, Texas, who was on a mission to find the descendants of Davis, believed that he was buried somewhere in the town of Sour Lake near the city of Beaumont, Texas. Lisenby does not reveal the source of this information, and it directly contradicts the information on his death certificate.

Even though no one has ever found Abner Davis’s headstone, his classmates at PVAMU have memorialized his legacy in numerous ways over the years. In a 1933 issue of the Prairie View Panther, one author wrote a poem about the gridiron hero. To view the original poem, please click HERE

IN MEMORY OF ABNER DAVIS (P. U. Hero)

Sleep, 0 brave one, in glory’s field,
Time to your name shall honor yield;
The summer shall their blooms impart.
To fade above each mold’ring heart
And fading, mix their lustrous charms
With dust that bore heroic arms.

In a January 1934 issue of the Prairie View Standard, one of his teammates L.C. Mosley penned a memoriam to Abner Davis, and he reveals that the first physical memorial to Davis came in the form of light. “The light in the center of the campus proper,” he explained, “is more than just a light to illuminate the path to the library. It represents the life of a gentleman, clean sport, athlete, and ideal student, Abner Davis, who was fatally injured in a Thanksgiving Day football game against Texas College in Tyler, 1927. The classes of ’29 and ’30 made it possible for this light to shine in its way as the living light of this football warrior had shone. The entire Alumni mourn with Henry Staton, A. J. Banks, M. C. Bates, S. Prince, L. C. Mosley, O. Mason, Jap Turner, G. Turner, J. J. Mark and Pop Singleton who started and finished the game that Abner started and could not finish.”

The demolition of Kirby Hall as well as “all wooden structures in the immediate campus area” in April 1934 (news about the razing of the slave mansion can be found in a newsletter HERE) provided an opportunity to install a new monument on “The Hill.” The teammates and classmates of Davis decided to replace the monument to slavery with a new symbol in the late 1930s.

A drinking fountain and memorial in honor of Abner A. Davis soon adorned the top of “The Hill,” and student organizations used the fountain as the site of many activities for the next four decades. In 1957, the Student Welfare Committee affirmed the need to beautify campus and spearheaded a “College Clean-Up Campaign involving both faculty and students in an effort to make Pantherland ideal.” Making the first step in this direction, the committee polished the Abner Davis Fountain and “put signs on the lawn asking students to use the sidewalks, thus avoiding making trails through the campus.” [For the entire article, please click HERE]

In 1961, PVAMU student Lois Moore noted that the center of the “campus is designated with a water fountain known as the Abner Davis water fountain. Many clubs and organizations meet periodically around this fountain…but many students on the campus do not know why these clubs meet here.” Moore also noted, “Although the fountain no longer exists as a water fountain, it is still the cultural center of the campus.” [For the entire article, please click HERE]

Woolfolk building, circa 1950 — The light and drinking fountain that once stood on “The Hill” in honor of Abner Davis can be seen clearly in this 1940s photograph of the Woolfolk Building, (Photo: George Ruble Woolfolk Collection, John B. Coleman Library, PVAMU)

In March 1963, the LES BEAUX ARTS Cultural Club renovated the Abner Davis Memorial. The fountain, once stained and weather-worn, has now been refreshed for a new year. “This improvement has certainly played a great role in making the ‘center’ of the campus, all the more attractive, for our yearly high school visitors.” For more information, click HERE

On January 16, 1984, PVAMU observed the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. and organized a special program in the quadrangle area of the campus at the Abner Davis Fountain. For more information, click HERE

In July 1984, the Class of 1930 renovated the Abner A. Davis Monument and added the Texas Sunset Granite. For more information, click HERE

The mystery about the location of Davis’ remains gives rise to many questions about the impact of racial segregation on his life and legacy. Being that his death occurred in the Jim Crow South, he would not have had access to quality medical care, and his death might very well have been prevented.

One day while walking across campus, I watched as landscapers blew freshly cut grass off the concrete walkway. It created a clean path for students. It was at this moment that I noticed the bust atop the Abner A. Davis Memorial was covered in spiderwebs, leaves, and dirt, and I started to wonder why no one on campus had taken the time to clean the statue. The grass is always freshly mowed and looks pristine. Indeed, the lawn on campus is cut and trimmed almost daily, and I rarely see any trash accumulation on the ground.

So I asked myself, “Why is the Davis memorial not well kept?”

The unsightly appearance of the Abner Davis Memorial was on my mind when I walked into work the next day for the Digital PV Panther Project, and I shared my concerns with Dr. Moore. I let him know about the condition of the memorial and that it wasn’t well-kept, and we agreed to take matters into our own hands and clean it up.

Students must take action themselves. — Polishing The Abner A. Davis Memorial on “The Hill” at PVAMU
(Photo: Kalayah Jammer, 2022)

At the time, we did not know that we were following in the footsteps of many other students and faculty at PVAMU, who had been dissatisfied with existing preservation practices and made it a point to beautify the campus. Thus, we gathered some cleaning materials and headed for the memorial. We began by dusting off the spider webs, which had certainly built up for several years. Once we removed the spider webs, we sprayed the bust clean with water, and we cleaned it with D2 biological solution, an organic cleaning solution that removes fungi and provides a protective coating for the memorial. We also wiped the memorial clean from top to bottom with a soft-bristle brush. When we finished cleaning, I felt very accomplished and proud to have played a role in keeping the campus beautiful.

This job has given me a new perspective on what studying at PVAMU means. Many students, faculty, staff, and administrators have paved the way for us, and I believe other students should recognize that. If we are not careful, we will discount the sacrifices of the past. We must appreciate our history as an HBCU, and I will make strenuous efforts to share insights with my peers so that our heroes, such as Abner Davis, will never be forgotten.

Sincerely,

Malachi McMahon