In 1943, the first lawsuit challenging segregated schools in Washington, D.C., was brought in Michael D. Davis's name by his father, John P. Davis. "The Washington Star" was highly critical of an African-American lawyer legally challenging the District's Dual school system when the principal of Noyes School refused to admit Mike Davis at five years of age, stating that the District citizens had long accepted separate schools for blacks and whites and that the suit brought by John P. Davis would cause even deeper divisions in the nation's capital.