[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 30 (Monday, July 31, 1995)]
[Pages 1294-1295]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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

[[Page 1295]]

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 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.