Benjamin Oliver Davis Jr. (December 18, 1912 – July 4, 2002) was a United States Air Force (USAF) general and commander of the World War II Tuskegee Airmen.
He was the first African-American brigadier general in the USAF. On December 9, 1998, he was advanced to four-star general by President Bill Clinton. During World War II, Davis was commander of the 99th Fighter Squadron and the 332nd Fighter Group, which escorted bombers on air combat missions over Europe. Davis flew sixty missions in P-39 Airacobra, Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, P-47 Thunderbolt and P-51 Mustang fighters and was one of the first African-American pilots to see combat. Davis followed in his father's footsteps in breaking racial barriers, as Benjamin O. Davis Sr. was the first black brigadier general in the United States Army.
Early life
Benjamin Oliver Davis Jr. was born in Washington, D.C., on December 18, 1912, the second of three children born to Benjamin O. Davis Sr. and Elnora Dickerson Davis. His father was a U.S. Army officer, a lieutenant at that time, stationed in Wyoming with an all-white cavalry unit. Davis Sr. served 41 years before he was promoted to brigadier general in October 1940. Elnora Davis died from complications after giving birth to their third child in 1916.
In the summer of 1926, at age 13, Davis Jr (or Davis) flew with a barnstorming pilot at Bolling Field in Washington, D.C. The experience led to his determination to become a pilot himself. In 1929 at the beginning of the Great Depression, Davis graduated from Central High School in Cleveland, Ohio. That same year he attended Western Reserve University (1929–1930).
Early military career
After attending the University of Chicago, Davis entered the United States Military Academy (West Point) in July 1932. He graduated from West Point in 1936, becoming the first black man to do so since 1889. He was sponsored by Representative Oscar De Priest (R-IL) of Chicago, at the time, the only black member of Congress. During his four years at the academy, Davis was isolated by his white classmates on account of his race. He never had a roommate. He ate by himself. His classmates rarely spoke to him outside the line of duty, intending that their "silent treatment" would drive him from the academy. It had the opposite effect; it steeled his determination to endure the animosity and to compete and graduate. Ultimately, his perseverance earned the respect of his classmates, as evidenced by a biographical note of Davis in the 1936 yearbook, the Howitzer: The courage, tenacity, and intelligence with which he conquered a problem incomparably more difficult than plebe year won for him the sincere admiration of his classmates, and his single-minded determination to continue in his chosen career cannot fail to inspire respect wherever fortune may lead him.
Davis graduated in June 1936, 35th in a class of 276. He was the academy's fourth black graduate after Henry Ossian Flipper (1877), John Hanks Alexander (1887), and Charles Young (1889). When he was commissioned as a second lieutenant, the Army had only two black officers who weren't chaplains – Benjamin O. Davis Sr. and Benjamin O. Davis Jr. After graduation he married Agatha Scott whom he met while a cadet at West Point.
At the start of his junior year at West Point, Davis had applied for the Army Air Corps but was rejected because it did not accept African Americans. In 1936, the U.S. Army assigned Davis to the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment (one of the original Buffalo Soldier regiments) at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was not allowed inside the base officers' club based on his race.
In June 1937, Davis attended the U.S. Army Infantry School at Fort Benning. He was later assigned to teach military tactics at Tuskegee Institute, a historically black college in Tuskegee, Alabama. This was the same assignment his father was given years before; it was a way for the Army to avoid placing a black officer in command of white soldiers.