King Davis currently holds the Robert Lee Sutherland Chair in Mental Health and Social Policy at the University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work. He was executive director of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health Services, Research, Policy, and Education from 2003 to 2008 and professor of Public Mental Health Policy at the Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond Virginia, from 1984-2000. 

He held the Galt Endowed Chair at each of Virginia’s medical schools from 1985-1988. From 1998-1999, he was the holder of the William and Camille Cosby Chair at Howard University, Washington D.C., and the Libra Chair in the School of Business and Public Policy at the University of Maine. He taught at Norfolk State University School of Social Work from 1974 to 1984. 

Professor Davis earned his PhD from the Florence G. Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University in 1972. King is a former commissioner of the Virginia Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance Abuse Services, serving from 1990 to 1994. He is co-author of The Color of Social Policy, published in March 2004 by CSWE Press. 

His most recent articles were published in the American Psychologist (2007), Journal of Social Policy (2009) and the Journal of International Social Policy(2009). He is editing a volume on mental health transformation in New Orleans and writing a history of Central Lunatic Asylum for Colored Insane in Virginia.