In May 1935 a conference on the economic status of the Negro was held at Howard University in Washington, D.C., out of which emerged a major civil rights coalition that was active in the late 1930s and 1940s: the National Negro Congress (NNC)—whose sponsors included Davis, Ralph J. Bunche and Alain Locke of Howard University, A. Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, James Ford of the Communist Party USA, Lester Granger and Elmer Carter of the Urban League, and Charles Hamilton Houston of the NAACP. Davis was one of the original founders; he served as Executive Secretary until 1942.