Rennie Davis

Who is Rennie Davis?

Rennard Cordon “Rennie” Davis is a former, prominent American anti-Vietnam War protest leader of the 1960s. He was one of the Chicago Seven.

Davis was the National Director of community organizing programs, a project of Students for a Democratic Society. Davis, along with Tom Hayden, organized anti-war demonstrations in Chicago before and during the 1968 Democratic National Convention for the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. He has appeared on Larry King Live, Barbara Walters, CNN, Phil Donahue, VH1, and other network programs, and provided advice in business strategies for Fortune 500 companies.

Davis grew up in Berryville, Virginia, and is an alumnus of Oberlin College in Ohio. His father was labor economist John C. Davis, who was President Harry S. Truman's chief of staff of the Council of Economic Advisers. Davis came back to Chicago for the 1996 Democratic National Convention to speak at the "Festival of Life" in Grant Park and to appear on a panel with Tom Hayden discussing “a progressive counterbalance to the religious right”.