John Warren Davis (February 11, 1888 – July 12, 1980) was an American educator, college administrator, and civil rights leader. He was the fifth and longest-serving president of West Virginia State University in Institute, West Virginia, a position he held from 1919 to 1953. Born in Milledgeville, Georgia, Davis relocated to Atlanta in 1903 to attend high school at Atlanta Baptist College (later known as Morehouse College). He worked his way through high school and college at Morehouse and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1911. At Morehouse, Davis formed associations with John Hope, Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, Samuel Archer, Benjamin Griffith Brawley, Booker T. Washington, and W. E. B. Du Bois. He completed graduate studies in chemistry and physics at the University of Chicago from