Early Life
Benjamin Oliver Davis was born in Washington, D.C., the third child of Louis P. H. Davis and Henrietta (née Stewart) Davis. Biographer Marvin Fletcher has presented evidence that Davis was born in May 1880, citing a June 1880 census document. Fletcher concludes that Davis lied about his age so that he could enlist in the Army without the permission of his parents. The birth date that appears on Davis's gravestone at Arlington National Cemetery is July 1, 1877, the date he reported to the Army.
Davis attended M Street High School in Washington where he participated in the school's cadet program. During his senior year of high school he took some classes at Howard University. His father, a messenger for the Interior Department, and his mother, a nurse, urged him to enroll in college after high school. Against his parents' wishes he determined to take a military career.
Read more about this topic: Benjamin O. Davis, Sr.
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“We early arrive at the great discovery that there is one mind common to all individual men: that what is individual is less than what is universal ... that error, vice and disease have their seat in the superficial or individual nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is, I think, to have a happy childhood.”
—Agatha Christie (1890–1976)