Good day readers,
It seems that time is moving so fast. I’ve become involved with a
wonderful and enjoyable project that occupies a lot of my time. I’ve
also taken on a labor of love. However, I’m getting my priorities in
line and that includes publishing !TFAM on a regular basis.
!TFAM is my way of moving Tuskegee Airmen legacy forward. This
history must be remembered a hundred and fifty years from now.
The stories the Airmen shared with you and with me must be
accurately shared with current and future generations by our
descendants and others. We must tell our own stories.
I will continue to tell their stories and you will continue to share their
with family and friends near and far. All is well and all will be well.
Taking a liberty with a quote from a well-known motivational
speaker, Les Brown, “!TFAM is better than good and better than
most newsletters about Tuskegee Airmen.
Today, I have two outstanding items about Tuskegee Airmen for you.
Tuskegee Airman, Jerry T. Hodges Jr. would have been 100 years old
on June 29, 2025. June 29th was also the birthday of Sam Hughes,
another Tuskegee Airman. Jerry and Sam were both members of Los
Angeles Chapter, Tuskegee Airmen Inc.
I’m taking a few minutes to introduce you to Sam Hughes.
Sam Hughes, in the picture below is on the left, and Roger C. “Bill”
Terry, on the right, share their history at a speaking event in La Verne
California in 2002. A really good read that will you an idea who these
two men were as young men. Also mentioned in the article, another
Tuskegee Airman, Edward “Ed” Brantley. His last named is misspelled
in the article. He was a fascinating man and a trailblazer also.
Another name mentioned is Lowell Bowles, while not an airman, he
was an outstanding gentleman and chapter president of LACTAI for
some years. He was instrumental and a driving force behind
Tuskegee Airmen being in the Rose Parade in 2010. Anyway, click on
the link and read the article.
In his own words,
Dr. Lincoln Ragsdale, Sr.
Tuskegee Airman
Please note this background sketch was written about 1987 and
before1989.
In November 1945, at the age of nineteen, Lincoln J. Ragsdale was
commissioned as a 2nd Lt. in the U.S. Army Air Force at Tuskegee Army Air
Force Base, Alabama.
In 1945, Ragsdale was one of 11 Tuskegee graduates assigned to Luke Army
Airfield, (now called Luke AFB) to go through gunnery training. Unknown to
Lincoln at the time, President Harry Truman had begun an experiment to
integrate the Armed Services.
Ragsdale, because he was commissioned after the completion of WWII,
never flew a military combat mission as had many as of his predecessors
who performed exceptionally well in aerial combat during WWII.
Lincoln Ragsdale has come a long way since his days as a military pilot. His
business enterprises have made him a very wealthy man and his civic
endeavors have made his name well known throughout Phoenix.
Ragsdale, whom President Ronald Reagan appointed to an eight member
Federal Advisory Committee of Small and Minority Business Ownership, has
broken down numerous racial barriers in the greater Phoenix area including
gaining membership in the Phoenix Jaycees and the Exclusive Arizona
Club. He is the recipient of many honorary awards including several from
his Alma Mater, Arizona State University.
He was married in 1949 to his beloved wife, Eleanor Dickey Ragsdale and
they are the proud parents of four children, Elizabeth, Gwendolyn, Lincoln
Jr., and Emily Evonne.
Interview: Lincoln Ragsdale, Sr. Chair, Corporate Solicitation
Committee in his own words…
I’m honored that you would allow me just to give you some insight
into my background and into what happened to me at Tuskegee
and why I was so anxious to go down there.
During the early thirties and through the late thirties, I was a young
boy who sold Black newspapers, the “Pittsburgh Courier” and the
“Chicago Defender.” My father refused to give me money, but
he said he would buy me newspapers and what I could sell I
could keep. So, he would buy the papers ten for a nickel and I
would sell them for a dime apiece. I would not have to give him
any money because he was smart enough to realize that instead
of giving me a dollar, he could buy a dollar worth of papers, and
I could make two dollars which taught us some basic things about
business.
Not being able to read very well in the early thirties, I would have my
mother read the newspapers to me and give me the headlines and
the stories. I would try to remember what my mother said and that
gave the impression that I knew what was going on, then tell the
people what was in the paper so they would buy the papers. A lot of
folks would buy a paper who could not read and write, and they
would let someone else read to them. They wouldn’t admit they
couldn’t read and write.
When the war started, well actually before the war started in 1939,
they were talking about Black pilots and flying. I had one experience
in my life of going up in an airplane. About 1936, my father had read
in the paper where there was going to be a Ford Tri-Motor coming to
my small town of Ardmore Oklahoma. I was born in Muskogee but
grew up in the little town they called Ardmore. My father had a funeral
home there and my mother was a schoolteacher in an elementary
school. We were a small family of two boys, a mother, and a father.
So, he told us about this airplane and wondered if we would like to
have the experience of going up in an airplane. He said if we saved
our money, he would take us out and let us go up in an airplane.
So, we saved up. I think it may have cost two or three dollars at the
time to take a ride over the city. He took the wo of us out, my brother
and myself, and although he wanted to go up, he said he wasn’t
going to go with us because if this thing fell out of the sky, he did not
want us all to be killed. Also, there wouldn’t be anyone to take care
of mother.
So, my brother and I went up. The only thing that I remember really is
that I closed my eyes on takeoff and I remember the vibration and I
didn’t open them until it was time to land. I peeped out of the side to
determine whether we were standing still or moving. It made a horrible
noise with those great big engines. The big Tin Flying Goose they
called it.
After I got interested in flying, in 1936, as a little boy riding my bicycle,
I bought some sunglasses, and I put them on my eyes like the pilots
used to wear and I would ride along and make the sound of an
airplane. After deciding that I wanted to be a pilot, when I was in high
school, I took special classes from one of our teachers. I finished high
school and went to Langston University for a summer and then on to
Howard University.
But in the meantime, I had taken the examination to go to Tuskegee.
I flunked it about three times, but on my fourth try I passed the written
to be a Pre-Aviation Cadet.
Then, I had to pass the physical. I was so excited that I flunked the
physical. I passed everything but I couldn’t control my heartbeat.
Finally, I went back and took it again, I flunked it again! I couldn’t
control my pulse; I would jump up and down and my pulse would go
up to 160 and the man would come back later and tell me to check
my pulse again and that it should be back to normal. But mine would
still be the same, still 160. So, I had a community doctor who was a
friend of the family prescribe a tranquilizer for me. He instructed me to
stay in bed all day, to not get excited, and to return there early
Monday morning.
Monday, I went out there to Ardmore Army Air Force Base. I walked in
so tranquilized my pulse was like 65 to 70. I jumped up and down and
it did not go any higher. The man couldn’t understand it, so he kept
me out there over an hour jumping up and down.
Finally, I did pass the physical. Then I was qualified to enter Tuskegee,
but I couldn’t go then because after graduation from high school I
had entered Howard University. I was at Howard for two terms before
they called me to come into the service at Fort George E. Mead. From
there I went down to Keesler Field, Mississippi. That was a great
experience for me. I’d never met such a large group of Blacks, all of
whom were intelligent young men.
There were about 500 of us. The war was winding down at the end of
- So finally we arrived at Tuskegee, 78 of us, and that was the
beginning of the greatest experience of my life. I had volunteered, as
a Pre-Aviation Cadet, and they called me to come to Fort George E.
Mead, Maryland, which is right out of Washington, D.C. They came up
to Howard and took me directly into military service. That was the
beginning.
Well, I think the thing that I wanted more than anything else was to be
somebody, whatever that was. I didn’t know what that was.
Integration was not a thing I ever anticipated would happen in my
lifetime. I was trying to prove we were equal to whites, that I could do
anything that they could do. Also, I was representing my little home
town in Oklahoma. I wanted to be an officer because of what I had
seen in the movies that were coming out then. Remember, I was not
involved in the beginning of the program. I had heard about the 99th
and we had pictures of them and when the first plane had been shot
down. I knew the names of all these fellows. I knew of B.O. Davis Jr.
and had seen pictures of his father, the general, and I just wanted to
be with that group of people. I had observed all of these things
happening and I wanted to wear a beautiful uniform. I wanted to
prove to the world I could be a gentleman! I could be an officer and
I could fly these airplanes.
My expectation was that I could do it, although, I wasn’t too sure
about it at that time because I’d never done it and no one from our
little home town had ever become a pilot except one man who had
flown with someone else but he was not really a pilot. My anticipation
was to become an officer, a gentleman, and prove I could be
somebody.
After arriving at Tuskegee, and Chehaw, the first person I saw on the
base was big Ira O’Neal. I could hear him hollering at the cadets and
exercising them. We passed by the top of the hill, we were in the back
of a big flatbed type truck that they carried troops around in.
I was, of course, a private and had all my personal possessions in a
duffle bag and we checked in as pre-flight school students. We
waited there and got all processed and they gave us the uniform with
a propeller on it. I thought that it was the prettiest head cap that I’d
ever seen as a cadet.
We started that program and by that time some of the fellows had
come from overseas. We got a chance to see some of the war heroes
who came back from combat duty with the 332nd. They were coming
back home. Spanky Roberts came back and I saw a black Colonel
for the first time in my life. I was so impressed with the character of
those men. I saw a different quality in black men which I’d never seen
before. The confidence they had and the courage, how they carried
themselves. They had fought the battle and their accomplishments
were factual, therefore, we had a history behind us then. Lee Archer
had shot down some planes and they were debating whether he
should be our ace or not.
I started the real program at the end of 1944 so when I got to
advanced training the war was just about over.
I felt something different. I was told , I was an officer, a gentleman,
and someone special and I believed all this because I received
respect like I’d never received in life. (People called me “sir”.)
When I graduated, my parents were there and my mother saw me
with my wings and pinned them on me while shedding tears of joy
that she had lived to seethe day that I could become a pilot in the
U.S. Arry Air Corps.
To be continued in the next edition. Don’t worry, the next edition will come
out in two weeks from today.
That’s all for now.
love you madly!
L. Sunnye Simpson
Editor and publisher
!TFAM is a publication created by L. Sunnye Simpson and is not affiliated,
in anyway, with Tuskegee Airmen Inc. Any mention of Tuskegee Airmen
Inc. is done so at the discretion of the editor.