*Joseph Gomer was born on this date in 1920. He was an African American businessman and former WW II Tuskegee Airman fighter pilot.
learn more*Wendell O. Pruitt was born on this date in 1920. He was a Black military pilot. Wendell Oliver Pruitt grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, as the youngest of ten children to Elijah and Melanie Pruitt. He attended Sumner High School and Lincoln University, becoming an Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity member. Already a licensed pilot, […]
learn more*Hans Hauck was born on this date in 1920. He was a Black German soldier who served in the Wehrmacht during the Nazi regime in Germany. He was born in Frankfurt am Main. Hans Hauck’s father, Benmansur Belabissi, was a Black Algerian stationed in the occupied Saarland as a soldier in the French army; his mother […]
learn more*Walter Morris was born on this date in 1921. He was an African American Paratrooper and Brick Mason Supervisor.
learn more*Joseph D. Elsberry was born on this date in 1921. He was a Black U.S. Army Air Force officer and fighter pilot. Joseph Dubois Elsberry was born in Langston, Oklahoma. Elsberry was the youngest child and only son of Joseph Dean Elsberry, a teacher and civic leader, and Beulah Earle Meeks Elsberry, also a teacher. […]
learn more*William Morgan was born on this date in 1921. He was an African American dentist and Tuskegee Airman.
William Bethel Morgan Jr. was from Wyano, Pennsylvania (Westmoreland County), a small coal mining community. His father was William Bethel Morgan, Sr., a coal miner, and his mother was Susie Harris Morgan a farmer. When he was just 8, in 1929, Morgan’s father died in a Wyano coal mining accident. Young Morgan and his mother moved onto a farm in Yukon, Pennsylvania as the only black family in town.
learn more*Clarence Beavers was born on this date in 1921. He was a Black United States Army sergeant and paratrooper. Clarence Hylan Beavers was born in Harlem, New York, and was the 15th of 16 children to parents who fled the South before he was born to escape racism. His maternal grandfather was an escaped slave who served in the […]
learn more*Rosco Brown was born on this date in 1922. He was an African American educator and military hero in WW II.
learn moreSamuel Lee Gravely, Jr., an African American Navy admiral, was born on this date in 1922.
learn more*Nathaniel Stewart was born on this date in 1922. He was a Black soldier and activist. Stewart was from Ft Motte, S.C., the son of Willie and Emily Stewart. As a young man, he served his country in World War II as a Tuskegee Airman, rising to the rank of Second Lieutenant in the 99th Pursuit […]
learn more*Kenneth Wofford Sr. was born on this date in 1922. He was an African American administrator and former Tuskegee Airman.
learn more*Clarence Lester was born on this date in 1923. He was a Black fighter pilot who served during World War II. Clarence D. “Lucky” Lester was born in Richmond, Virginia. Raised in Chicago, Illinois, Lester attended West Virginia State College, where he was a star football player and a fraternity brother of Kappa Alpha Psi, […]
learn more*Joshua Dunbar’s birth is celebrated on this date in 1823. He was a Black plasterer and soldier. Joshua Dunbar was born enslaved in Garrard County, Kentucky. Historians know little about his early life; he trained as a plasterer while enslaved. His master allowed him to work away from his home plantation and keep some of […]
learn more*Harry Stewart Jr. was born on this date in 1924. He was a Black soldier and fighter pilot. Harry Thaddeus Stewart Jr. was born in Newport News, Virginia. When he was two years old, after living near Langley Field Air Force Base between Hampton and Newport News, Virginia, Stewart and his family moved to Queens […]
learn more*Harold H. Brown was born on this date in 1924. He was a retired U.S. Air Force officer, World War II prisoner of war (POW), and former combat fighter pilot in Korea. Harold Brown was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His parents were originally from Talladega, Alabama, but moved to Minnesota to escape Jim Crow segregation. He had […]
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