The night is beautiful. So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful, so the eyes of my people.

Beautiful also is the sun.

Beautiful also are the souls of my people.

Langston Hughes, my people.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Music The

The Episode 426.

incomparably more difficult.

Benjamin Oliver Davis was born on July 1, 1877, in Washington, D.C. He was known to the family as

Ollie. His father, Louis Davis, worked as a messenger for the U.S. Department of the Interior.

His mother,

Henrietta, was a nurse. He grew up in Washington and attended Washington High School,

which at the time was a segregated high school for African American students.

Segregation is bad, but Washington High was also one of the first schools in the United States that offered a high school education to African American students, so that's something.

Today, the school is known as M Street High School.

Ali Davis was a good student. He also played on the school's baseball and football teams.

He became captain of the football team. He also joined the school's cadet program.

This program organized students from each high school in the city into a quasi-military cadet unit.

These units would then compete against each other in drilling,

marksmanship, and such. During his senior year, Ollie took classes at Howard University in Washington,

and his parents' dream was that their son would attend Howard after graduation. But Ali was more interested in becoming a soldier.

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