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

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. Lewis is facing towards Davis, away from the camera, and Davis is partially facing the camera, but looking off-frame to the proper left. Another Tuskegee airman stands behind them, at proper left, smoking a cigarette in his right hand and turned to look behind him. Other men are partially visible at the proper right of the photograph, walking into frame, and in the background inside the tent. The image is slightly blurry.

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