Benjamin O Davis Jr.

It was a Sunday afternoon. I watched as the barnstormers flew over the horizon doing rolls, loops, and spine-chilling acrobatics… it just captivated me. That day, the day uncle Ernest took me to the air show at that simple dirt strip at Bowling Field was one of the best days of my life.

When my parents got back from Europe, I begged them to take me to the show again. My father paid five dollars for my first plane ride. I watched as the ground flew by me as we took off soaring through the sky. A year after my flight, I heard about Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic crossing.

It then occurred to me that the most exiting thing in the world is to be a pilot.  

My father was a Brigadier General. He was the only African American general in the U.S. Army. He had wished for me to go to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York. No African American had ever attended West Point.                                      (PAUSE)

For four years, other cadets would only speak to me for official reasons. I had no roommate and ate my meals in silence. Usually, cadets do this to someone who has violated the code of honor. The students tried to drive me from the academy, but their actions only made me more determined to succeed. I graduated in 1936, becoming the first African American to earn a diploma from West Point.

I was sent to command the Tuskegee Airmen in Alabama. The Tuskegee Airmen was a name for a distinguished group of African American pilots who flew for the United States in World War 2. Before the Tuskegee Airmen, all combat pilots had been white. But by a series of legislative move by congress, the Air corps was forced to form an all-black unit.