Photograph of Joe Louis and Commander Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., Ramitelli airfield

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A black-and-white photograph of staff sergeant Joseph Lewis Barrow (heavyweight champion Joe Lewis) and Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., commander of the 332nd Fighing Group, taken during Lewis' visit to the airfield in Ramitelli, Italy, in the fall of 1944. At the center of the photograph, Lewis, at proper left, and Davis, at proper right, stand in front of a tent pitched in the middle of a grassy field. They are holding mugs and facing the camera. Another Tuskegee airman stands behind them, at proper left, holding a cigarette in his right hand and wearing a pair of binoculars around his neck. Other men are partially visible in the background inside the tent, and at the proper right of the photograph, walking into frame.

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