Rennard Cordon Davis (May 23, 1940 – February 2, 2021) was an American anti-war activist who gained prominence in the 1960s. He was one of the Chicago Seven defendants charged for anti-war demonstrations and large-scale protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He had a prominent organizational role in the American anti–Vietnam War protest movement of the 1960s.
In the early 1970s, Davis became a follower of Guru Maharaj Ji (Prem Rawat) and his Divine Light Mission. He began to travel as a spiritual lecturer. He also became a venture capitalist, and founded the Foundation for a New Humanity to combine these goals.
Early life
Davis was born in Lansing, Michigan, on May 23, 1940. His family moved to Berryville, Virginia, when he was in the seventh grade. His father, John, worked in nearby Washington, D.C., including as chief of staff to the Council of Economic Advisers under President Harry S. Truman. His mother, Dorothy, was employed as a schoolteacher. Davis studied at Oberlin College starting in 1958.
In the 1960s, Davis became active in the Students for a Democratic Society. He was the National Director of their project of community organizing programs (the Economic Research and Action Project, or ERAP) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He became increasingly allied with anti-war groups, and helped organize protests and related events before and during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago for the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam ("the Mobe"). At a police riot in Grant Park on August 27, 1968, Davis was among protesters beaten by Chicago police officers, and he suffered a concussion. The original eight protester/defendants, as indicted by the grand jury on March 20, 1969, included Davis, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, John Froines, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale, a Black Panther leader.
During the early part of the trial, Seale's case was separated from the others.