Metro Detroit Honors Late Tuskegee Airman Alexander Jefferson

Michigan Advance

July 10, 2022

Gloria Page could not fight back tears Thursday as she viewed the body of Tuskegee Airman Alexander Jefferson. She said his World War II service was part of our “heritage and legacy.”

“I learned about the Tuskegee Airmen and heard personally about his experience,” the 74-year-old Howard University and Detroit resident told the Advance. “I studied my Black history and learned as much as I could when I was in school. What they did and what they went through was amazing to me.”

Page was among the first people to pay respect to Jefferson, a member of the noted Tuskegee Airmen who helped America defeat Nazi Germany during World War II. Jefferson died at age 100 on June 22 and a public viewing was held at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.

In 1942, Jefferson was sworn into the United States Army Reserves. He reported in April 1943 to Tuskegee Army Airfield and began flight training during a time when the American armed services were racially segregated. He served as a member of an all-Black elite unit that included former Michigan state Sen. and Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young.

Carlota Almanza-Lumpkin is a member of the Detroit Tuskegee Airmen organization. She participated in the viewing service and was inspired by Jefferson’s service.

“He was dedicated to the end. He was a true hero and gentleman,” said Almanza-Lumpkin.

Jefferson was born in Detroit in 1921 during the Great Migration, a period in American history when tens of thousands of Blacks from southern states moved North in hopes of better economic opportunity. He attended Chadsey High School and Clark College in Atlanta, a historically Black college.

During his U.S. Army service, Jefferson flew 18 missions escorting bombers during his military service. In 1944, he was shot down by German Nazi troops in southern France and taken as a prisoner of war. Jefferson endured nine months as a prisoner of war before he was liberated and returned home in 1945.

In 1972, he started the first chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen, an organization devoted to introducing youth to the world of aviation. In 2007, he and other surviving Tuskegee Airmen and their families were collectively awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Jefferson spent his civilian life teaching in Detroit and preserving the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen.

On the floor of the U.S. Senate in 2008, Carl Levin, then the senior senator from Michigan, offered a powerful tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen and listed all 155 members who had a Michigan origin and served in the unit.

“The Tuskegee Airmen were awarded three Presidential Unit Citations, 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses and Legions of Merit, along with The Red Star of Yugoslavia, nine Purple Hearts, 14 Bronze Stars and more than 700 Air medals and clusters. It goes without question that the Tuskegee Airmen are deserving of the Congressional Gold Medal,” said Levin.

During a November 2021 ceremony at Detroit’s Rouge Park, city government officials rededicated Jefferson Airfield in the park in his honor.

Penny Bailer’s late husband, Kermit, was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen unit. She, too, participated in the viewing service.

“He was dedicated to the end,” said Bailer.

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