NEWS

Tuskegee Airman Cornelius Davis dies at 100

Gershon Harrell
The Gainesville Sun
Officials prepare to escort a hearse Monday carrying Cornelius Davis, a Tuskegee Airman, from Forest Meadows Funeral Home to Marianna.

The parking lot at Forest Meadows Funeral Home was filled with army veterans and law officials on motorcycles, gathered to support the family who had recently lost their grandfather and patriarch, Cornelius Davis, who served with the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. 

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first Black military aviators to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps, the precursor to the U.S. Air Force. 

The Combat Motorcycle Veterans Association were there through their Final Mile program to escort Davis's body to the Vann Funeral Home in Marianna, a sign of respect.

The Final Mile program came from the Tampa VA medical center. 

"When we learned of the number of unclaimed vets who were going to cemetery alone, when I heard about that I said 'Nah, we got a group of people that will make sure that never happens again.' So we started out in February of 2019," said David Allen, the group's treasurer.

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Angela Davis, 59, Cornelius Davis' youngest daughter, described her father as a beloved gentleman, who loved to dance and had a magnetic smile.

"He just smiled and that's what people really liked about him," Davis said. "He was just an easygoing person. My entire 59 years of life, I have never heard him say a curse word." 

Aircraft armorer, photographer

Davis was born in Blountstown, Florida in 1921 and later moved to Detroit in 1941. There he worked for the Ford Motor Company and joined United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 600. 

Davis received military leave from the Ford Motor Company to join the U.S. Army Air Corps, beginning his basic training at Fort Custer in Michigan and then Tuskegee, Alabama. He began training as an airman at Buckeye Field, Colorado. 

The Tuskegee airmen faced great obstacles, including the racist belief held by some that Black people could not learn to operate a plane. There were more than 900 Tuskegee Airmen, 66 of them killed in action. It was many years after World War II ended that their exploits were celebrated in popular culture.

Angela Davis said her father originally wanted to be work with Army tanks, but after seeing a movie reel where a bomb was dropped on a tank he changed his mind. 

Officials load a casket carrying the body of Cornelius Davis, a Tuskegee Airman, Monday.

"And he's like 'Oh well, that didn't look good I want to be the one dropping the bomb.' So he changed that idea from the tank person to the air person," she said. 

Davis became an aircraft armorer, and loaded ammunition on airplanes.

After the war, he returned to work at the Ford Motor Company and became the official photographer for UAW Local 600. 

"He took photos of Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy. He took pictures of Rosa Parks, people like that he was able to capture," Angela Davis said. 

He passed on his love of photography to his granddaughter Tiffany Davis Altman, who wore a camera around her neck at Monday's service. 

"And so now following in his footsteps and being the family photographer, it's just really important to me keep that going on behalf of him," Altman said. 

"A part of history"

She said growing up, people always looked at her grandfather as a living legacy and being a major piece of history. 

"But to me he was like Pops, he was just Grandpa," she said. 

They recently celebrated Davis' 100th birthday on March 12. He became a Gainesville resident in 2014, after Angela Davis became his primary care provider. She put together a home for him called the Wetherby House. 

"I feel honored to have a father that is a part of history. I feel blessed that he was in our lives. I feel happy that he's with God. I feel just blessed to even have him in my life," Angela Davis said. 

Davis died on June 1 and the funeral will be held Thursday morning in Blountstown at 11 a.m., Central Standard Time.