Born in Washington, D.C., and after spending his earlier years going to many different schools, Benjamin David, entered in to the all‐white U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where the last African American to graduated was in the 1880s. After he graduated in 1936, he requested for assignment to the Army Air Corps and was refused because there were no black aviation units. Instead, he was assigned to an all‐black infantry regiment and then to the Tuskegee Institute as an instructor. In 1941, the War Department finally allowed blacks into the Air Corps, although in segregated units. Davis established a flight program at Tuskegee, and as a lieutenant colonel took command of the 99th Pursuit Squadron (the “Black Eagles”), the first black air unit. In 1943, during World War II, he led the unit to North Africa. As a result of this experiance, he commanded the 332nd Fighter Group, a larger all‐black flying unit, and as a colonel, flew sixty combat missions in the Italian theater. In 1948, following President Harry S. Truman's desegregation order, Davis designed the implementation program for the U.S. Air Force. In 1954, he was promoted to brigadier general, in 1959 to major general, and in 1965, he became America's first black lieutenant general, serving with the air force in Germany and the Philippines during the Vietnam War before his retirement in 1970. Afterward, he served in the early 1970s in the U.S. Department of Transportation on issues involving air hijacking and aviation safety. He passed away July 6 of 2002.
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