and psychology professor in South Carolina. He died in Orangeburg, South Carolina in 1931. Whittaker was buried at Orangeburg Cemetery. His sons, Johnson Whittaker Jr. and Miller Whittaker both served as Army officers in World War I. In addition, a grandson, Peter H. Whittaker, joined the all-black Tuskegee Airmen in World War II. A great-grandson, Ulysses W. Boykin III, served as a first lieutenant in the Vietnam-era Army and a judge of the circuit court in Wayne County, Michigan. Posthumous commission In 1972, a book about Whittaker by John Marszalek, a historian at Mississippi State University, drew attention to his case. In 1994, a television movie based on the book aired, which generated momentum for the movement to award Whittaker a posthumous commission as an officer in the US Army. On July 25, 1995, President Bill Clinton awarded the commission to Whittaker's heirs, saying, "We cannot undo history. But today, finally, we can pay tribute to a great American and we can acknowledge a great injustice." In popular culture Assault at West Point: The Court-Martial of Johnson Whittaker is a 1994 TV movie about the case. Matter of Honor, a stage play by Michael Chepiga retelling Whittaker's story while at West Point, was produced at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California, in September 2007. See also Henry Ossian Flipper, first African American to graduate from West Point, Class of 1877 References Further reading Marszalek, John. Assault at West Point: The Court Martial of Johnson Whittaker. Touchstone (1994). External links 1858 births 1931 deaths 19th-century American slaves People who were court-martialed Overturned convictions in the United States People from Camden, South Carolina University of South Carolina alumni United States Military Academy alumni 20th-century African-American people