The Study of Racialism

Powell · Guru Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 2379 }

Features of Today’s One-Drop Rule

Here's more interesting information about Calvin Davis:

http://www.interracialvoice.com/powell14.html

It's from a book called

Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories from the Underground Railroad by Betty DeRamus (Atria Books, 2005). pp. 182-185 and notes p. 252

Now what does a World War II pilot have to do with the Underground Railroad? Nothing. However, the author throws in every tidbit about "race" that fascinates her.

It seems that Calvin Davis, who was the son of a white woman and a father from a mixed race family that settled in Northern Michigan, gave interviews to his homedown newspaper while he was in the Army and supposedly "passing." It seems clear that both Davis and his community considered him "white."

"Sgt. Davis, Cited for Heroism at Rabaul, Visits Home for Well-Earned Rest." Bear Lake Beacon, April 11, 1944.

"T. Sgt. Calvin Davis, Pleasanton Hero Ace, Reported Missing in Action over Germany." The Bear Lake Beacon, January 9, 1945.

Davis was not declared "black" until a cousin, Calvin Murphy of Bear Lake, Michigan, claimed that Davis had "passed for white" in order to fight in World War II. Murphy had never known Davis, who obviously died before Murphy was born.