Home > World War II > Benjamin Davis Biography

Born December 12, 1912
Washington, D.C.
United States Air Force general

Overcoming obstacles and achieving great things was a longstanding tradition in the family of Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. His father, Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. was the U.S. Army's first African American general. And even as Davis, Sr. spent the years during World War II advising the U.S. government on race-related matters, his son, Davis, Jr., was leading the Tuskegee Airmen as they showed what black servicemen could achieve. Only the fourth African American to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, Davis, Jr. endured harsh treatment at the academy and was told he would never realize his dream of becoming a military pilot. He not only became a pilot but led hundreds of other black pilots as they trained at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama and went on to combat duty in Europe. Under Davis's command, the...