Dowdal H. Davis's papers are arranged in two subseries, Personal and Organizational Records. Personal Records contains three further divisions: Biography, Correspondence, and Davis Family. Organizational Records contains two subseries: Negro Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and Other Organizations.

Arrangement in the Biography subseries, where items were drawn together by type, and Other Organizations, grouped by organization name, is by alphabetical order; for all other subseries, arrangement within is chronological.