Matthew Simpson Davage

Rev. Matthew Simpson Davage (June 16, 1879 – September 20, 1976) also known as M. S. Davage, was an American educator, college and university president, businessperson, and minister. He served as president of George R. Smith College (from 1914 to 1916); Haven Institute (from 1916 to 1917); Samuel Huston College (from 1917 to 1920); Rust College (from 1920 to 1924); and Clark College (from 1924 to 1941). The family moved to New Orleans when he went to college, where his father served as the pastor for the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Davage studied in the classical department at New Orleans University (now Dillard University).

Davage was business manager for the Southwestern Christian Advocate newspaper from 1905 to 1915. the president of Rust College (from 1920 to 1924); He was the first Black president of Rust College, a private historically black college in Holly Springs, Mississippi. The Davage Auditorium (1954) at Clark University was dedicated to him.

The Amistad Research Center at Tulane University has a collection of his papers. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library has a photograph of Davage published in 1922. In 1939, he corresponded with W. E. B. Du Bois who sent him an autographed copy of Du Bois' speech "The Revelation of St. Orgne the Damned", which is now part of the archives at University of Massachusetts Amherst. He was photographed at the charter signing of Huston-Tillotson College on October 24, 1952, which is now part of the Huston-Tillotson University Downs-Jones Library Archives and Special Collections in Austin, Texas.