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She may not be a familiar face in New York, but Belva Davis will forever be remembered as a trailblazer who broke down barriers in broadcasting.

Davis was the first black female television journalist on the west coast, and she is still going strong as host of a weekly political affairs program on KQED-TV in Northern California.

She recently visited Harlem's Hue-Man Bookstore to talk about her new memoir called "Never in My Wildest Dreams: A Black Woman's Life in Journalism."

"People were just not ready to accept the fact that I could come into a business, not knowing, get a break, and do fairly well," said Davis.

The eight-time Emmy Award winning journalist found herself caught in the middle of some of the most explosive stories that rocked the nation during the turbulent 1960s and 70s, including the Vietnam War protests and the rise of the Black Panthers, where she landed exclusive interviews with Panther leaders Huey P. Newton and Eldridge Cleaver.

"With Eldridge, it was that he wanted to arrive home and be allowed to tell his side of the story, and his side of the story was so different from the government's side of the story that my station didn't want to air it,” she recalled.

Davis held her ground and her story made it on the air.

In addition to numerous high-profile interviews with celebrities like Bill Cosby and Ray Charles, she also found herself in the middle of violent demonstrations – and never backed down, even when she was mistreated by her own colleagues.

"It was terrible to the degree that there was friction that nobody wanted to talk about it,” she said.

But for nearly five decades, Belva Davis has been talking about hot-button issues, both on and off the air, and she earned the respect of generations of viewers.

"We have so much rich history of defiance and push and confidence and faith, so I never really felt alone,” said Davis.