    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
    [July 24, 1995]
    [Pages 1138-1139]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Posthumous Commissioning Ceremony for
    Johnson C. Whittaker
    July 24, 1995

        To the members of the Whittaker family, Secretary West, General
    Davis, General Gorden, General Griffith, Senator Hollings, Senator
    Thurmond, Congressmen Spratt and Clyburn, ladies and gentlemen, welcome
    to all of you.
        Today is a good day for the United States. Today we honor the memory
    of a great American, Johnson Chesnut Whittaker. Born into slavery, he
    was appointed to West Point in 1876 at the age of 17. Life at West Point
    was harsh for all cadets, but for the few African-Americans like Johnson
    Whittaker, it was doubly difficult. He was ostracized by his white
    peers. Few spoke to him except to issues orders and commands.
        From the beginning, the odds were against him. Then in April of
    1880, Johnson Whittaker was assaulted in his barracks. Three masked men
    tied him to his bed and left him battered, bleeding, and unconscious.
    His superiors charged that Whittaker had mutilated himself and faked
    unconsciousness to gain attention. After a lengthy court-martial, he was
    convicted and sentenced to dismissal from the Army.
        The court-martial was overturned by President Chester Arthur. But on
    that very day, the Secretary of War dismissed Johnson Whittaker from
    West Point. The grounds for dismissal: He had allegedly failed an oral
    examination in philosophy.
        Johnson Whittaker was a rare individual, a pathfinder, a man who
    through courage, example, and perseverance, paved the way for future
    generations of African-American military leaders: General Chappie James,
    Lieutenant General Benjamin O. Davis--who is with us today--General
    Colin Powell, and so many others. In part because Whittaker and others
    like him took those first brave steps, America's Armed Forces today
    serve as a model for equal opportunity to our entire country and indeed
    to the world.
        Johnson Whittaker did more than open doors in our military; he left
    to his descendants a remarkable legacy of determination and a sense of
    duty. Two of his sons served as Army officers during World War I. One
    returned home and served the citizens of his State as president of South
    Carolina State University. A grandson flew with the famed Tuskegee
    Airmen during the Second World War. His granddaughter, Cecil Whittaker
    Pequette, who is here with us today, gave voice to her community as a
    founder of the Detroit Tribune. And today his great-grandsons, one a
    lawyer, the other a surgeon, also carry on the Whittaker tradition.
        During his 4 years at West Point, Cadet Whittaker found his greatest
    source of comfort and strength in the Bible. Today, fading words on the
    inside cover of that fragile volume reveal a young man whose essential
    goodness still offers a lesson to all of us: ``Try never to injure
    another by word, by act, or by look even,'' he wrote in his second year
    at the academy. ``Forgive as soon as you are injured, and forget as soon
    as you forgive.'' On the following New Year's Day, Johnson Whittaker
    resolved, and wrote in his Bible, ``never to commit an act at which my
    kind mother would have to blush, to do right at all times, under
    whatever circumstances and at whatever cost.''
        We cannot undo history. But today, finally, we can pay tribute to a
    great American, and we can acknowledge a great injustice. I would like
    to do two things today: first, to present to Mrs. Cecil Whittaker
    Pequette what may have been her grandfather's most prized possession,
    that old Bible that soothed his loneliness and

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    was confiscated and kept all these years as a part of his court-martial
    record. And second, I am honored to present the Whittaker family with
    the bars that Second Lieutenant Johnson Chesnut Whittaker earned but was
    denied.
        May God bless his memory, and may all of us honor his service to the
    United States of America.
        Major, please read the commission.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:38 p.m. in the Roosevelt Room at the
    White House. In his remarks, he referred to Secretary of the Army Togo
    D. West, Jr.; Lt. Gen. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., USAF (Ret.); Maj. Gen.
    Fred A. Gorden, Commanding General, U.S. Army Military District of
    Washington; and Gen. Ronald H. Griffith, Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army.