Born on the eve of the Emancipation Proclamation in Roanoke County, Virginia, Richard L. Davis moved to Rendville, Ohio in 1882 where he became a checkweighman and early mine labor organizer. Founded in 1879 by Chicago coal operator, William P. Rend, Rendville survives today as the smallest incorporated community in Ohio. In 1886, one year after the Great Hocking Valley Strike, Davis wrote his first letter to the National Labor Tribune. On January 22, 1890, he was one of only two African Americans who attended the founding convention of the United Mine Workers of America in Columbus, Ohio. Between December 1890 and April 1899, with one exception, Davis wrote 168 letter, first to the editor of the National Labor Tribune and later the United Mine Workers Journal. In his letters Davis strongly advocated for an end to the color line and for white and colored miners to unite against wage slavery. After serving five years on the executive board of Ohio’s District Six, in 1896 Davis became the second African American to be elected to the National Executive Board. Blacklisted, after serving two terms, the Sage of Rendville, fell on hard times only to suffer an untimely death in 1900.