Description:Chantee Lans has the story on the 17-year-old pilot.
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Originally Published: 25 FEB 24 14:47 ET
By Megan Thomas, CNN
(CNN) — Halle Bailey and Sterling K. Brown could start a fan club for one another.
Brown, his wife Ryan Michelle Bathe and Bailey shared an endearing moment on the red carpet at Saturday’s Screen Actors Guild Awards, where “The Little Mermaid” star was overcome with admiration upon seeing the couple.
The three were speaking with Entertainment Tonight’s Nischelle Turner, when Brown and Bathe told Bailey, 23, how much they loved her performance in the Disney live-action remake of the animated classic.
“She’s lovely,” Brown said. “She represented so well for us. I mean, we were streaming tears at the end of it because you were beautiful. Your soul is beautiful, your talent was radiant.”
Visibly moved, Bailey expressed her gratitude for the compliments.
“If you had done it and you were bad, nobody would be messing. But you killed it!” Brown joked, before reenacting the scene in the movie when Ariel emerges from the water on a rock while singing, “Part of Your World.”
Bathe also showered Bailey with praise and noted her historic casting.
“You don’t understand, I watched that movie every single day from the age of like 12 to 16,” Bathe said, as she held back tears. “I didn’t think I’d see us. And not only was it us, it was so you. You brought you and then you brought us in bringing you.”
“It was unspeakable joy for me,” Bathe added.
Bailey said it was her first time at the SAG Awards. She was nominated for with the cast of “The Color Purple” for best ensemble performance in a film.
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‘The Little Mermaid’
Halle Bailey in “The Little Mermaid”
Disney via CNN Newsource
25 Feb 24
Sterling K. Brown and Halle Bailey
**This image is for use with this specific article only** Sterling K. Brown and Halle Bailey at the Screen Actors Guild Awards on February 24 in Los Angeles.
Frazer Harrison/Valerie Macon/Getty Images via CNN Newsource
25 Feb 24
Originally Published: 26 FEB 24 08:40 ET
Updated: 26 FEB 24 08:43 ET
By Lisa Respers France, CNN
(CNN) — The writer and director of “American Fiction” used a celebration of independent filmmaking to share the reality of making independent films.
Cord Jefferson won the best screenplay category at the 39th Independent Spirit Awards for his film on Sunday and kept it real in his acceptance speech.
“Our film is so independent that one morning I woke up at our hotel to find out that there had been a triple stabbing the night before in the lobby,” Jefferson said. “A Russian man had stabbed three of his friends and fled into the woods. They were cleaning up the blood. And I would not have it any other way.”
The film about a Black writer who is frustrated with the publishing world has become critically acclaimed.
It’s main star, Jeffrey Wright, also won Sunday for best lead performance.
“It’s funny, you go to these awards shows, [and] you kind of grow tired of them and then you get one and… kind of changes the vibe,” Wright joked as the audience laughed.
Wright also thanked members of his cast and explained that the film was initially independent because no one wanted to finance it.
“American Fiction” also stars Tracee Ellis Ross, Erika Alexander, Issa Rae, Sterling K. Brown and Adam Brody.
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Jeffrey Wright
**This image is for use with this specific article only** Jeffrey Wright poses in the IMDb Portrait Studio at the 2024 Independent Spirit Awards on February 25, 2024 in Santa Monica, California.
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images via CNN Newsource
26 Feb 24
Cord Jefferson
**This image is for use with this specific article only** Cord Jefferson winner of best screenplay for ‘American Fiction’ poses in the press room during the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards on Sunday.
Monica Schipper/Getty Images via CNN Newsource
26 Feb 24
Originally Published: 25 FEB 24 10:00 ET
Updated: 26 FEB 24 08:49 ET
By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNN
(CNN) — Tesla has been slashing prices. Ford just cut the price of its Mustang Mach-E, too, plus it cut back production of its electric pickup. And General Motors is thinking about bringing back plug-in hybrids, possibly taking a step back from GM’s earlier commitment to shifting straight to pure EVs.
And now the EPA is considering slowing down requirements for automakers to sell more electric vehicles, dialing back what had been aggressive plans to move away from gas powered cars and SUVs.
To be clear: The American market for EVs is not collapsing. In the last quarter of 2023, EV sales were up 40% from the same quarter a year before, according to Cox Automotive. In fact, EV sales in the United States hit a record last year, topping 1 million for the first time.
But the EV market has nevertheless become a major disappointment. There is a troubling gap between expectations and reality.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance, for instance, had projected sales of 1.7 million plug-in vehicles in 2023, but only 1.46 million ultimately sold. (BNEF’s figures include plug-in hybrids, but the large majority are fully electric vehicles.) The trend line isn’t slanting upward as sharply as many had predicted so the industry is lowering future estimates.
Industry experts cite a number of reasons for this, including vehicle price, lack of charging capacity and confusing tax credit rules.
High prices
Most electric vehicles currently on sale in America are on the more expensive side of the automotive market.
“Between $50,000 and $60,000 now we get Kia and we get Cadillac,” said Tyson Jominy, an industry analyst with J.D. Power, referring to the Kia EV9 and Cadillac Lyriq electric vehicles. “Those two don’t normally face each other.”
Besides being too expensive for the average buyer, selection is limited in terms of body style, said Corey Cantor, an industry analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The vast majority are relatively expensive SUVs, and there are few sedans or compact cars for customers who want something different.
The target customer is also changing as selling more EVs means reaching outside a core of knowledgable EV enthusiasts.
“As the COVID shock retreated, we learned that as you scale EVs to 5,000, to 7,000 units a month and you move into the early majority customer, they are not willing to pay a significant premium for EVs,” Ford chief executive Jim Farley. “This is a huge moment for us.”
This is why Ford recently cut prices for the Mach-E SUV and why Farley created a team to work on a less expensive EV engineering platform that will be the basis for future models.
Charging needed
Then there’s the continued lack of public charging. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, part of the US Department of Energy, estimates that the US will need 182,000 fast chargers for electric vehicles by 2030. There are currently fewer than 40,000, according to the DOE, with about a quarter of those in California.
Besides raw numbers, the EV chargers that are currently available tend to rate low with consumers in terms of reliability, according to J.D.. Power surveys.
The two issues of vehicle price and public charging are related, Jominy said. People who can afford to buy luxury-priced vehicles are also more likely to have a home in the suburbs with a garage where they can charge their car overnight. Public chargers are more important to people who can afford neither an expensive vehicle nor a house with private parking.
Automakers are finally taking major steps to do something about that, tapping into newly available federal funds, plus their own money, to install more chargers.
BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis have come together to create a joint venture that plans to install about 30,000 chargers across the United States and Canada.
Also, to make things simpler for drivers, every major automaker in the US has agreed to switch over to the same charging standard used by Tesla, still the largest seller of EVs. That means that, in a few years, almost all EVs sold in America will have the same type of charging port and use the same type of charger.
There’s a long way to go, said Carlos Tavares, chief executive of Stellantis, the company that makes Jeep and Dodge vehicles. In the words of the Portuguese auto executive, who spoke to journalists in New York recently, public EV charging needs to “jump on your face” before most customers will consider an electric vehicle.
“It means when you go to the mall, when you go to the supermarket, when you go to the restaurant, when you go to gym, when you park your car, you have charging units waiting for you,” he said. “You don’t have to look for them.”
EV chargers in the US are nowhere near that level, yet but things will improve, said Valdez Streaty.
“I think, in the next couple of years, we’re going to start to see exponential growth of charging,” she said, “and hopefully, with that comes reliability, because that’s the other big aspect of it.”
Credit confusion
Many substantial tax credits are available to help offset the cost of purchasing electric vehicles, but the rules are complex. Some come with restrictions on where the vehicle is built, where the battery pack and its parts are from, the price of the vehicle, and the household income of the buyer.
More models are becoming eligible as automakers go through thecomplex application process. Also, starting this year, customers can claim the tax credit as a rebate at the time of purchase rather than waiting until they file their taxes.
Leasing also provides a way for more consumers to get tax credits. Because of the way tax laws are written, leased vehicles are exempt from most restrictions on federal tax credits, so many automakers offer the tax credit as a lease incentive.
“We’re going to see leasing take off and that’s because of the loophole,” said Valdez Streaty, “but also because consumers are not sure if they want to buy, or if they’re ready to buy, electric.”
This story and its headline have been updated to reflect context about EV sales expectations.
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2023 Los Angeles Auto Show
**This image is for use with this specific article only** The All-Electric Ford Mach-E is displayed during the 2023 Los Angeles Auto Show at the Los Angeles Convention Center on November 24, 2023 in Los Angeles.
Josh Lefkowitz/Getty Images via CNN Newsource
25 Feb 24
Originally Published: 26 FEB 24 09:26 ET
By Madeline Holcombe, CNN
(CNN) — There is still much researchers don’t know about popular weight loss medications — and those lack of studies could have consequences for eating disorders, according to experts.
The medication semaglutide, sold under brand names such as Ozempic and Wegovy, is a kind ofglucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist or GLP-1 agonist. While originally prescribed for diabetes, semaglutide is becoming more and more popular for weight loss.
As the medication become more available, experts said they worry about the impact of these weight loss products on eating disorders.
“We noticed clinically that we were getting more and more people into our clinical services that had been started on GLP-1 agonists and had experienced new onset or worsening eating disorder symptoms,” said Dr. Aaron Keshen, codirector of the Nova Scotia Provincial Eating Disorder Service and assistant professor in the Dalhousie University’s department of psychiatry in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Eating disorders affect nearly 1 in 10 people in the United States, according to the nonprofit National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, which provides support services for people with these conditions. Next to opioid addiction, it has the second-highest crude mortality rate of any mental illness, the association said.
The possibility that GLP-1 agonists could make eating disorders worse or more prevalent “makes us have to go really slowly and be very thoughtful about when we might prescribe them,” said Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani, an eating disorder physician and founder and medical director of the Gaudiani Clinic in Denver.
The scope of research on the connection between eating disorders and weight loss medications is quite slim, leaving experts with many unanswered questions, said Dr. Susan McElroy, chief research officer at the Lindner Center of HOPE and the Linda and Harry Fath endowed professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.
“I view eating disorders as the last frontier in psychiatry,” she added. “The eating disorder field is hard because we’re just ignored.”
Can these drugs treat binge eating disorder?
Are there cases in which these medications actually help eating disorder patients? Perhaps, experts said.
Generally, if a medication causes weight loss, there is a good chance it will alsoreduce binge eating, McElroy said.
Binge eating disorder is the most common eating disorder. But as with anorexia and bulimia nervosa, there isn’t enough research into how to treat it with medication, she added.
“We desperately need more compounds to treat people with eating disorders,” McElroy said.
These medications could help in theory, but they have not been approved for treating binge eating disorder, she added.
“There is a little bit of preliminary evidence that maybe GLP-1 agonists could reduce binge symptoms in some individuals,” Keshen said, “but the evidence is fairly weak at this point, and it’s certainly not enough to recommend that people take GLP-1 agonists for binge eating.”
Keshen and McElroy worked on a 2023 paper published in the International Journal of Eating disorders that reviewed the existing literature on GLP-1 agonists and eating disorders. The studies they found on binge eating disorder were small, and many didn’t test against a placebo,Keshen said.
“More research needs to be done,” he added. “And that may happen in the future.”
Can they bring an eating disorder back?
Eating disorders happen in people of all shapes, sizes and health conditions — so doctors may prescribe these medications unknowingly to those with a history of or even an active eating disorder, Gaudiani said.
“Their ability to perhaps pay for a medication that causes weight loss, while potentially causing medical complications, is concerning,” she said.
Gaudiani said she has heard anecdotal evidence of people in remission for an eating disorder have it reignited after taking a GLP-1 agonist.
Eating disorders are complicated biopsychosocial illnesses, Gaudiani said, and the process of losing weight might trigger increased restrictive dieting, which can bring up “old gremlins.”
Additionally, these medications suppress appetite. Feeling full too quickly or feeling sick after only eating a little can disconnect a person from their innate hunger and fullness cues, she added.
“If somebody has had a history of an eating disorder, or indeed just has temperamental traits, and is surrounded by a society that is extremely focused on weight loss and fatphobia, and they begin to lose weight,” Gaudiani said, “it’s not unimaginable but that could devolve into something that becomes quite obsessive and quite mentally and physically unhealthy for them.”
Can they unleash a new monster?
With little research on the topic, experts can’t say if GLP-1 agonists would make it more likely for someone to develop an eating disorder, but there are reasons to be concerned, Gaudiani said.
“A lot of eating disorders do begin with restricted food intake and weight loss,” she said. “The act of reducing caloric intake and the act of losing weight physiologically have been proven to trigger eating disorder behaviors, even in those who wouldn’t otherwise be considered temperamentally or socially prone to them.”
Gaudiani pointed to the Minnesota Starvation Experiment of 1944 in which individuals volunteered to undergo starvation so researchers could experiment with the best refeeding methods.
There was an effect that researchers didn’t expect when the volunteers were starved, she said. They became obsessed with food, reading cookbooks, chewing gum constantly, cutting the food they ate into little pieces to spend longer eating, and judging people in restaurants they deemed gluttonous.
“In short, (they were) acting like someone with anorexia,” Gaudiani said. “There’s something about our brains that fundamentally change when we get inadequate calories and lose weight.”
There is also a risk for behaviors such as bulimia, Keshen added. If people have a suppressed appetite, they may not eat at all during the day and then binge at night — which could then resultin purging behaviors, he said.
“Perhaps a degree of moderate weight loss is a healthy outcome for some individuals,” Keshen said, “but it’s never going to be a healthy outcome to achieve rapid weight loss due to excessive pathological dietary restriction.”
How to protect those vulnerable to eating disorders
First, health care providers prescribing these medications need to screen for a history of eating disorders, active eating disorders and even vulnerability for an eating disorder, Keshen said.
“It may be worth trying to treat the eating disorder first, or perhaps not using a GLP-1 agonist at all in that patient,” he said.
If a doctor and patient choose to move forward with medication, it is important they also go over information about eating disorders and the importance of eating structured meals, Keshen said.
Nourishment is something people on appetite-suppressing medication should reviewregularly with themselves, Gaudiani said.
“Humans, like all mammals, need to nourish throughout the day to have the energy to do with our body and minds what we want to do, and so we have to check, ‘Am I eating enough?’” she said. “‘How often am I thinking about food and body?’”
If those with histories of eating disorders find themselves reverting to old behaviors while taking GLP-1 agonists, they should contact their doctors and therapists, Gaudiani said.
And for those who haven’t been diagnosed with an eating disorder, or who might not even reach the threshold of one, if thoughts of weight and food are distracting from goals and priorities, it may be time to seek an eating disorder expert if resources are available, she said.
“If not, going on eating disorder treatment websites or listening to podcasts can just help bring some support and clarity to what’s going on,” Gaudiani said.
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Eating disorders
**This image is for use with this specific article only** There is little research on the connection between eating disorders and weight loss medications such as semaglutide, experts say.
Johner Images/Getty Images via CNN Newsource
26 Feb 24
Originally Published: 26 FEB 24 09:47 ET
By Scarlett Conlon, CNN
(CNN) — Beneath the Nicola Bertucci frescoes and gilt Rococo cornicing of the 17th-century Palazzo Visconti Di Modrone in Milan, a six-foot fibreglass character stands among piles of white and mustard granite stones.
If the mix seems incongruous, then consider the objective achieved. The character forms part of an installation by Lagos-based artist Yusuff Aina, commissioned by designer Iniye Tokyo James for his Fall-Winter 2024 fashion show “Expansion,” held in the space on Saturday. In partnering on the project, the pair sought to challenge the traditional stereotype about the styles of art and fashion that come from their native Nigeria.
“The people who have (already) been celebrated and the voices acknowledged have been fantastic, but there is another set of individuals proposing a different conversation (about) what it means to be from this part of the world,” James told CNN Style from Lagos a week before the show. “That is where Yusuf (and I) aligned and that has been exciting for us because there’s so much more that we want to do together.”
It was on a similar trip to Lagos from London — where James, 36, lives — that he first saw Aina’s work, on display at the city’s leading art center Art Twenty One. After going to see the exhibition — and being told off for trying to touch the sculptures on display — James reached out to open a dialogue about future collaboration.
“His work has a whimsical vibe to it, it is fun, but at the same time serious,” said James of Aina. “It’s not playing on the stereotypical nuances that are peddled out there that make people expect an African mask or (traditional) art forms. His work could be at the Metropolitan (Museum) or Art Basel.”
For his first collaboration with a fashion designer, 27-year-old Aina created a new iteration of his character called “The Eniyan,” a recurring motif in his work “meaning human being, or person or individuals, somebody or anybody and nobody”, he told CNN Style over Zoom, before he travelled to Italy for the event.
Riffing off the “Expansion” show theme, Aina called his work “Domain Expansion,” wanting it to reflect the evolving phases of life and hoping that it challenges people to look beyond familiar surroundings.
“This goes beyond just coming from Africa or Nigeria, it goes far and wide around the world to all races and different kinds of identity, whether you’re White, Black, short, tall, queer and so on. The main purpose of this collaboration is to allow stories to reach everyone,” he said. “I don’t like boundaries, borders, separation, seclusion, segmentation or creating a box for people to just navigate around. This show focuses on the idea of how much we really need to spread our branches.”
Aina’s distinctive style is informed by his own history of growing up in Lagos. “The kind of art I saw was mostly what you see by the roadside, portraits of the Lagos governor or president or celebrities hanging on the streets,” he said. “But then I got into comic books — there was a (soccer) comic book called “Super Strikers” which was a major influence to me and helped me practice drawing. I watched anime as well to get influence from other creators and see how far my imagination could go.”
Since he started his fashion brand in 2015, James — who was nominated for the LVMH Prize which rewards young designers “for their talent and outstanding creativity” — has made it his mission to incorporate African skills and techniques into his work in ways that innovate on tradition. For his Fall-Winter 2024 show, he used intricate weaving techniques across his famed outerwear and the tailoring that took two months to master (“it was one of the hardest things to do!”) and added elaborate beading to selvedge denim.
These techniques were joined by advertising motifs — “like the ones we grew up with in Nigeria” — reworked into T-shirts and prints, “expanding the narrative and seeing things in a new way,” said James backstage after the show.
Ultimately, he said, this collaboration was “about finding ways that celebrate individuality — and the things that unite and join us rather divide us”.
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Tokyo James and Yusuff Aina
**This image is for use with this specific article only** Tokyo James and Yusuff Aina. The creative collaborators say they have “so much more (they) want to do together.”
Benjamin Vitti via CNN Newsource
26 Feb 24
James of Aina
**This image is for use with this specific article only** “His work has a whimsical vibe to it, it is fun, but at the same time serious,” said James of Aina.
Antonio Calanni/AP via CNN Newsource
26 Feb 24
James Milan
**This image is for use with this specific article only** James has made it his mission to incorporate African skills and techniques into his work in ways that innovate on tradition.
Antonio Calanni/AP via CNN Newsource
26 Feb 24
Palazzo
**This image is for use with this specific article only** The Tokyo James women’s Fall/ Winter collection fused art and fashion from Africa in a Milanese palazzo.
Antonio Calanni/AP via CNN Newsource
26 Feb 24
Tokyo James art
**This image is for use with this specific article only** The inventive collection also featured this golden face adornment.
Antonio Calanni/AP via CNN Newsource
26 Feb 24
Originally Published: 26 FEB 24 10:06 ET
Updated: 26 FEB 24 10:29 ET
By Brian Fung, CNN
Washington (CNN) — The US Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments Monday in two cases that could dramatically reshape social media, weighing whether states such as Texas and Florida should have the power to control what posts platforms can remove from their services.
The high-stakes battle gives the nation’s highest court an enormous say in how millions of Americans get their news and information, as well as whether sites such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok should be able to make their own decisions about how to moderate spam, hate speech and election misinformation.
At issue are laws passed by the two states that prohibit online platforms from removing or demoting user content that expresses viewpoints — legislation both states say is necessary to prevent censorship of conservative users.
More than a dozen Republican attorneys general have argued to the court that social media should be treated like traditional utilities such as the landline telephone network. The tech industry, meanwhile, argues that social media companies have First Amendment rights to make editorial decisions about what to show. That makes them more akin to newspapers or cable companies, opponents of the states say.
The case could lead to a significant rethinking of First Amendment principles, according to legal experts. A ruling in favor of the states could weaken or reverse decades of precedent against “compelled speech,” which protects private individuals from government speech mandates, and have far-reaching consequences beyond social media.
A defeat for social media companies seems unlikely, but it would instantly transform their business models, according to Blair Levin, an industry analyst at the market research firm New Street Research.
“This case represents the single biggest near-term risk to the social media platforms’ business models,” Levin wrote in a research note Monday, adding that the case has the potential “to make a sudden and dramatic turn that would materially disrupt” their ability to moderate content and, in turn, their attractiveness to advertisers.
Questions on Florida law
Supreme Court justices opened Monday’s oral arguments by questioning Florida Solicitor General Henry Whitaker about the broad scope of the state’s law restricting content moderation.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Florida’s law could prevent the online marketplace Etsy from curating items sold by its users.
“This is so, so broad, it’s covering almost everything” on the internet, Sotomayor said. “But the one thing I know about the internet is that its variety is infinite.”
Etsy necessarily has to be able to curate what it shows users or else they would be overwhelmed by the variety, Sotomayor said.
Whitaker said Florida’s law is limited by its definition of social media companies, which focuses on large platforms.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
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US Supreme Court building
**This image is for use with this specific article only** The United States Supreme Court building is seen as in Washington, U.S., in October 2023.
Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters via CNN Newsource
26 Feb 24
Originally Published: 26 FEB 24 10:26 ET
Updated: 26 FEB 24 10:31 ET
By Priscilla Alvarez and MJ Lee, CNN
Washington (CNN) — President Joe Biden is set to make a rare trip to the US-Mexico border, setting up a split screen with 2024 rival former President Donald Trump, who has made Biden’s handling of immigration a centerpiece of his reelection effort.
The New York Times was first to report on Biden’s visit.
Trump is also expected to give remarks at Eagle Pass on Thursday, according to a source familiar with his plans.
Biden’s visit comes as he considers sweeping executive action to restrict migrants’ ability to seek asylum at the US southern border if they crossed illegally. Biden has repeatedly lambasted congressional Republicans for failing to pass a bipartisan compromise spending package that included significant concessions on border policy.
CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.
Biden has previously visited the border once as president, traveling to El Paso, Texas, in January 2023, where he visited a migrant respite center but did not appear to see or meet with migrants.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
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Mia Williams said she couldnt be happier sharing her designs at the first annual Black Excellence Hair Showcase on the South Side.Source: KSAT
Embargo: San Antonio, TX Footage Type: PKG TRT: 01:56
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Originally Published: 25 FEB 24 09:30 ET
By Nicole Chavez, CNN
(CNN) — Despite knowing they would likely be relegated to support roles due to the color of their skin, a father and son chose to make the military their lifelong career. Determined to succeed, they became America’s first Black generals.
In 1940, Benjamin O. Davis Sr. becamethe first Black person to achieve the rank of brigadier general in the US Army.
His son, Benjamin O. Davis Jr., followed in his footsteps by joining the military and latercommanding the famed Tuskegee Airmen. Twenty years after his father made history, Davis Jr. became the first Black brigadier general in the Air Force in 1960.
“Davis Sr. and Jr. were both extremely influential figures in the effort to increase opportunities for African Americans in the military,” said J. Todd Moye, a history professor at the University of North Texas who directed the National Park Service’s Tuskegee Airmen Oral History Project in the early 2000s.
Black people have held roles in the US military since the Revolutionary War,even as they have endured racism and discrimination for centuries. During the Civil War, Black soldiersserved in segregated units and were later shut out of leadership opportunities during World War I and in World War II, when less than 10% of veterans were non-White, CNN previously reported.
Davis Sr. was born in Washington, DC, less than 20 years after the ratification of the 13th amendment, which abolished slavery.
After participating in his high school’s cadet program, Davis Sr. joined the military during the Spanish-American war,serving in the DC’s National Guard with the 8th US Volunteer Infantry regiment before enlisting in the Army in 1899, according to the Army’s Center of Military History.
He was assigned to the all-Black 9th Cavalry, one of the four regiments that became knownas theBuffalo Soldiers, and he served in the Philippines and at the US-Mexico border.Like many Black service members, Davis Sr. did not serve on the front lines during World War I and instead worked as a supply officer.
A 1925 study by the Army War College falsely concluded that Black people lacked the intelligence, ambition and courage to serve in prominent positions within the US military and should not be placed over White officers or soldiers. This policy and the ideology behind it prevented many Black soldiers from advancing through the military’s ranks, including Davis Sr., who was continuously assigned to serve as professor of military science and tactics despite his strong preference for duty with troops.
“He got bounced around from post to post, and to ROTC leadership roles on campuses around the country, mainly because the Army felt like an African American just could not lead White soldiers,” Moye said. “They thought that White soldiers and lower-level White officers just could not be expected to take orders from a Black man. So, there were very few opportunities for him.”
He was collectively shunned for 4 years at West Point
Davis Jr. grew up watching his father’s courage to fight for his ambitions in the face of discrimination. It became something that he himself would mirror time and time again through his adult life.
Davis Jr. put his dream of becoming a pilot aside and chose to become a military officer by attending West Point. Securing a nomination was complicated. Rep. Oscar S. De Priest of Illinois, the first African American elected to Congress in the 20th century, was willing to nominate him but could only select a candidate from among his constituents. So, Davis Jr. moved alone to Chicago for nearly two years to secure the nomination and his spot at West Point.
In 1932, he received orders to report to West Point and four years of shunning began.He roomed alone, ate by himself in the cadet mess hall and no one spoke to him except on official business. This treatment was usually a punishment that cadets carried out against those who violated the honor code but in his 1990 autobiography, Davis Jr. wrote that he was “silenced solely because cadets did not want Blacks at West Point.”
“Their only purpose was to freeze me out. What they did not realize was that I was stubborn enough to put up with their treatment to reach the goal I had come to attain,” he added.
When he graduated in the top 12% of his class in1936, Davis Jr. was the fourth Black cadet to graduate from West Point and the first one to do so in nearly 47 years.
But with no opportunities for Black officers to fly, Davis Jr.joined an infantry regiment. Like his father, he later became a professor of military science and tactics at what was then called the Tuskegee Institute.
Doug Melville, Davis Jr.’s great-nephew who recounts the Davises journey and legacy in his book“Invisible Generals: Rediscovering Family Legacy, and a Quest to Honor America’s First Black Generals,”said the father and son spent four years traveling togetherto Black colleges and training young men looking to join the Army.
“They were telling them: ‘One day your time will come, keep your chin up, look straight ahead and be ready,’” he said. “Ultimately those are the men that Ben Jr. recruited to become the Tuskegee Airmen.”
WWII drove social change and a breakthrough for Black soldiers
The opportunity they had been preparing for came in the early 1940s as it became clear that the US would be entering World War II and Black workers threatened to march on Washington, protesting job discrimination and segregation in the military.
On October 25, 1940, Davis Sr. was temporarily promoted to brigadier general by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Months later, Roosevelt signed an executive order creating the Committee on Fair Employment Practice to prevent discrimination in defense and government jobs.
Moye said the overall changes in the military, including Davis Sr.’s promotion, were significant because until that point, the Army’s position had been to deny Black Americans opportunities to advance, much like the rest of society at the time.
“American schools are segregated, American churches are segregated, all of these other institutions in America are segregated (and) the Army shouldn’t be expected to be out in front of all of those other institutions,” Moye said, referring to how the armed forces viewed their role in the nation’s desegregation movement.
“So, (the Army) provided no opportunities for African Americans to lead troops, it provided no opportunities before 1940 for African Americans to fly airplanes, there were no African Americans in the Marine Corps,” Moye added.
In 1942, Davis Jr. graduated in the first class of pilotsin a newly-created unit of Black military aviators at Alabama’s Tuskegee Army Airfield – a unit now known as the Tuskegee Airmen. That August, he assumed command of the 99th Fighter Squadron, the first unit of Tuskegee Airmen, which engaged in combat in North Africa and Sicily.
Although the Tuskegee Airmen were aware they were breaking racial barriers and making history, Moye, who has met and interviewed many airmen over the years, saidtheir motivations varied.
“A lot of them say ‘I just wanted to be a pilot and, you know, the other stuff was sort of extracurricular to me,’ but a lot of them wanted to do it because they wanted to break barriers,” Moye said. “They wanted to prove that African Americans could do everything that White Americans could do.”
Following the success of the Tuskegee Airmen during WWII, Davis Jr. joined the US Air Force upon its split from the Army.
In 1948,President Harry S. Truman issued an executive order creating the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, leading Davis Jr. to becomedirectly involved with integration efforts in the US Air Force, Melville said.
While his father retired from the military before the start of the Korean War, Davis Jr. served during both the Korean and Vietnam Wars. In 1960, he became the first Black brigadier general in the US Air Force.
He retired a decade later.
The fight for equality went on
While the generals broke barriers and successfully foughtfor the advancement of Black Americans, change and increased opportunities have been slow to take holdin the military and beyond, scholars and historians told CNN.
Black men are currently overrepresented in the US military when compared to the civilian labor force, but they remain underrepresented in officer ranks, CNN reported in 2020.
Le’Trice Donaldson, an assistant professor of history at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi whose research has focused on African Americans in the military, said the lack of combat experience remains a challenge for the advancement of Black service members.
“In order to move up and become a general you need a certain level of combat experience and African Americans are almost always shuffled into transport or support staff divisions, and that is going to limit your ability to be promoted,” Donaldson said.
After retiring from the military,Davis Jr., like other Tuskegee Airmen, sought to continue flying as a commercial pilot but the career heexpected to have never materialized. Melville said heapplied for jobs at multiple airlines but never received anoffer, despite his accomplishments.
Still, he found a way to stay involved in aviation. In the 1970s, Davis Jr. was named director of civil aviation security for the Department of Transportation, where he led the implementation of measures to counter aerial hijackings and oversaw the training of agents of what now is known as the Federal Air Marshal Service.
In 1998, President Bill Clinton promoted Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., to the rank of four star general, describing him during the ceremony as “a hero in war, a leader in peace, a pioneer for freedom, opportunity and basic human dignity.”
“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,” Clinton said. “Perhaps no one is more responsible for that achievement than the person we honor today.”
Throughout their lives, the Davises were devoted to their families and never sought the spotlight. Melville recalledDavis Jr.’s kindness and how he never wanted to share his past or photos with him and that he didn’t have military regalia in his house.
Years after Davis Jr.’s passing, Melville beganresearching his family’s history – details that had never been shared with him. He wrote in his book that, at his core, Davis Jr. had a deep desire to overcome discrimination and be known as a general in “an equal way to all others, without qualifiers.”
“Our family went beyond what they needed to do in order to invest in a country that really wasn’t investing in them but they still believed it was the best country in the world, and still believed that positivity and sunlight will shine for our people and that we will earn our place as Americans,” Melville said.
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Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. (right) and Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.
**This image is for use with this specific article only** Davis Sr. was the first African American general in the United States Army. Davis Jr. later became the first African American general in the United States Air Force. He received his medal for a bomber-escort mission.
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25 Feb 24
Benjamin O. Davis, Sr.
**This image is for use with this specific article only** Brigadier General Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. (1877 – 1970) watches a Signal Corps crew in action, France, August 1944.
Interim Archives/Getty Images via CNN Newsource
25 Feb 24