[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book II)]
[December 9, 1998]
[Pages 2145-2148]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks Honoring General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., of the Tuskegee Airmen
December 9, 1998

    Thank you. Well, Colonel McGee, I think this is one of those days 
where I'm supposed to take orders. [Laughter] I am delighted to see you. 
I thank you and Colonel Crockett for the jacket. I can't help saying as 
a point of personal pride that Colonel Crockett is a citizen of my home 
State, Arkansas. And we go back a ways, and we were together not all 
that long ago in Cambridge, England, when we celebrated the 50th 
anniversary of the D-Day invasion. And we were there together.
    Colonel Campbell, I think you were picked to speak not because you 
were born in Tuskegee but because you give a good speech. [Laughter] I 
think you did a fine job. Thank you, sir.
    Let me say to all the Tuskegee Airmen here, we are honored by your 
presence and grateful for your service. I'd like to ask all the Tuskegee 
Airmen who are here just to stand for a moment so we can express our 
appreciation. They are out in the audience as well as here. Please 
stand. [Applause] Thank you very much.
    There are so many distinguished people here in the audience; let me 
begin by thanking Secretary Cohen for his outstanding leadership. Janet, 
we're glad to see you here, glad you did that interview with General 
Davis many years ago. I thank the people from the White House who are 
here, General Kerrick and others; the people from the Pentagon, Deputy 
Secretary Hamre, Secretary Caldera, Secretary Danzig, Acting Secretary 
Peters, General Shelton, all the Joint Chiefs are here today.
    I'd like to say a special word of thanks to Senator John McCain, the 
driving force behind the legislation to authorize this promotion. Thank 
you, sir.
    I also want to thank one of the finest supporters of our military 
and of this action in the United States Congress, Senator Chuck

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Robb, for being here. Thank you, sir--and leaders of the veterans and 
service organization, members of the Armed Forces. There are many, many 
distinguished guests here, but I would like to mention two. First, a 
great American and former Secretary of Transportation, William Coleman, 
who is here. Thank you for coming, Mr. Secretary Coleman. And I might 
add, his son has served with great distinction in the Pentagon; we thank 
him for that.
    And I'd like to recognize Governor Doug Wilder from Virginia, who 
has been very actively involved and wrote an introduction to a book 
about General Davis. Thank you for being here.
    And we want to welcome Mrs. Elnora Davis McLendon and the family and 
friends of General Davis who are gathered here, and especially General 
Davis himself.
    Much of the distinguished record of General Davis and the Tuskegee 
Airmen has been mentioned, but I would like, for the record of history, 
for you to bear with me and allow me to tell this story and the story of 
this remarkable family.
    Today we advance to the rank of four-star general, Benjamin O. 
Davis, Jr., a hero in war, a leader in peace, a pioneer for freedom, 
opportunity, and basic human dignity. He earned this honor a long time 
ago.
    Our Armed Forces today are a model for America and for the world of 
how people of different backgrounds working together for the common good 
can perform at a far more outstanding level than they ever could have 
divided. Perhaps no one is more responsible for that achievement than 
the person we honor today. When the doors were shut on him, he knocked 
again and again until finally they opened, until his sheer excellence 
and determination made it impossible to keep them closed. Once the doors 
were open, he made sure they stayed open for others to follow. Some who 
followed are in this audience today.
    In 1899 General Davis' father, Benjamin Davis, Sr., a skilled 
National Guardsman, sought entry into West Point. He was told no blacks 
would be appointed. Undeterred, he enlisted in the Army and 
distinguished himself immediately. In less than 2 years, he was an 
officer. It takes longer if you go to West Point. [Laughter]
    Twenty years later, Colonel Davis was teaching at the Tuskegee 
Institute. The Klu Klux Klan announced it would march through the 
Davises' neighborhood. The Institute instructed its staff to stay 
indoors, turn out their lights, to keep from provoking the marchers. But 
Colonel Davis refused. Instead, he put on his dress uniform, turned on 
the porch light, gathered his family. Theirs was the only light for 
miles. But they sat proudly and bravely outside as the hate marchers 
passed by. Benjamin Davis, Jr., never forgot about his father's shining 
porch light.
    As a teenager, inspired by Charles Lindbergh's historic flight, he 
dreamed of becoming an aviator and a trailblazer. With hard work, he did 
gain admission to West Point, the very opportunity denied his father. 
The father saw that the son had the chance not only to serve his country 
but to inspire African-Americans all across America. ``Remember,'' he 
wrote, ``12 million people will be pulling for you with all we have.''
    But at West Point, as you have already heard today, Benjamin Davis 
was quite alone. For 4 years, fellow cadets refused to speak to him, 
hoping to drive him out. ``What they didn't realize,'' he later 
recalled, ``was that I was stubborn enough to put up with the treatment 
to reach the goal I had come to attain.''
    His request to join the Air Corps upon graduation was denied, 
because no units accepted blacks. Though he ranked 35th out of a class 
of 276, West Point's Superintendent advised him to pursue a career 
outside the Army. He refused. Arriving at Fort Benning to command an 
infantry company, he was again shunned from the Officers' Club, subject 
to segregation on and off the base.
    But times were changing as World War II dawned. Just as President 
Roosevelt promoted Benjamin Davis, Sr., to Brigadier General, the first 
African-American general in our Nation's history, he ordered the Air 
Corps to create a black flying group. Benjamin Davis was named its 
leader, and in the spring of 1943, the 99th Fighter Squadron departed 
for North Africa and began combat missions. Their group commander soon 
recommended they be removed from combat, however, claiming--listen to 
this--that a black American did not have the desire or the proper 
reflexes to make a first-class fighter pilot.
    Colonel Davis then proved he was just as skilled in the conference 
room as in the cockpit. His testimony, as you have so eloquently heard 
today, carried the day before a military panel, making the case for 
ability and bravery. The panel recommended that the 99th be reinstated

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and that more African-American squadrons be sent overseas.
    Returned to the skies, as we all know, the Tuskegee Airmen proved 
themselves again and again. They destroyed far more planes than they 
lost; they disabled hundreds of enemy boxcars. They even sank an enemy 
destroyer, a unique achievement in the war. And as you have heard twice 
now, during 200 escort missions above the Third Reich, they never lost a 
single bomber to enemy fire.
    The Tuskegee Airmen's extraordinary success and the invaluable 
contributions of other blacks and minorities in the war helped to turn 
the tide against official racism and to pave the way for President 
Truman's historic order 50 years ago mandating, and I quote, ``equality 
of treatment and opportunity in the armed services.'' This led to an end 
of segregation in our forces.
    For 25 years after the war, Benjamin Davis, Jr., rose to complex 
security challenges in Air Force postings at home and abroad. Wherever 
he went, he overcame bigotry through professionalism and performance. 
Following his retirement in 1970, he continued his distinguished public 
service, including at senior positions at the Department of 
Transportation.
    I'd like to say something personal. A lot of these old-fashioned, 
almost amazing arguments against the capacity of black Americans were 
still very much in vogue during the civil rights movement in the 1950's 
and the 1960's. And for children like me who were taught that the civil 
rights movement was the right thing to do in the South, and who engaged 
in countless arguments against inane statements, you have to remember, 
we were raised in the generation right after World War II, and everyone 
recognized that everything about World War II in our minds was ideal and 
perfect and insurmountable and unsurpassable. The one stopper that any 
southerner had in a civil rights argument was the Tuskegee Airmen. They 
will never know how much it meant to us.
    General Davis, through it all you have had the steadfast support of 
your wife, Agatha, whom I know is home today thinking of you. You 
struggled and succeeded together. I think you all should know that in 
1973, Mrs. Davis wrote to a cadet who had been silenced by his 
classmates: ``I think I know what your life at the Academy must have 
been. My best friend spent 4 years of silence at the Point. From 1936, 
when I married that best friend of mine, until 1949, I, too, was 
silenced by his classmates and their wives. There will always be those 
who will stand in your way. Don't resent them. Just feel sorry for them, 
and hold your head high.''
    Like so many military spouses past and present, this exceptional 
woman, an officer's wife who spent World War II toiling in a munitions 
factory, has worked and sacrificed to defend our freedom. And General, 
just as we salute you today, we salute her as well.
    When Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., became an officer, he was the only 
black officer in our Air Corps. Now the Air Force has 4,000. Minorities 
and women remain underrepresented in our officer corps, but General 
Davis is here today as living proof that a person can overcome adversity 
and discrimination, achieve great things, turn skeptics into believers, 
and through example and perseverance, one person can bring truly 
extraordinary change.
    So often today, America faces the challenge of helping to prevent 
conflicts overseas, fueled by these very divisions of race and ethnicity 
and religious differences. On Saturday I am going on a mission of peace 
to the Middle East, still embroiled in such conflicts. We cannot meet 
these challenges abroad unless we have healed our divisions at home.
    To all of us, General Davis, you are the very embodiment of the 
principle that from diversity we can build an even stronger unity and 
that in diversity we can find the strength to prevail and advance. If we 
follow your example, America will always be strong, growing stronger. We 
will always be a leader for democracy, opportunity, and peace. We will 
be able to fulfill the promise of our Founders, to be a nation of equal 
rights and dignity for all, whose citizens pledge to each other our 
lives, our fortune, our sacred honor, in pursuit of that more perfect 
Union.
    I am very, very proud, General Davis, of your service. On behalf of 
all Americans, I thank you. I thank you for everything you have done, 
for everything you have been, for what you have permitted the rest of us 
Americans to become.
    Now I would like to ask the military aide to read the citation, 
after which, I invite General Davis' sister, Mrs. Elnora Davis McLendon, 
to join me in pinning on the General's fourth star.
    Read the citation.

Note: The President spoke at 2:49 p.m. in Room 450 of the Old Executive 
Office Building. In his

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remarks, he referred to original Tuskegee Airmen Col. Charles McGee, 
USAF (Ret.), Lt. Col. Woodrow Crockett, USAF (Ret.), and Col. William A. 
Campbell, USAF (Ret.); Janet Langhart, wife of Defense Secretary William 
S. Cohen; former Secretary of Transportation William T. Coleman, Jr., 
and his son, William T. Coleman III, General Counsel, U.S. Army; and 
former Gov. Doug Wilder of Virginia.