Westbury Tuskegee Airman Spann Watson dies at 93

Spann Watson, who helped break the color bar in the military as one of the original Tuskegee Airmen, then used his position as an employee of the Federal Aviation Administration to agitate for integration among commercial airline crews, has died of complications of pneumonia.

Watson, 93, a Westbury resident for 48 years, died late Thursday at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola.

"He was unwavering in discipline and unwavering in love," said the youngest of his five children, Weyman Watson, of South Orange, N.J. "You got both, whether you wanted it or not."

A South Carolina native whose family moved to New Jersey after a neighbor was lynched when he was 10, Watson followed a path to a military cockpit that was not easy.

Watson, who earned a pilot's license while studying mechanical engineering at Howard University, was rejected by an Army recruiter in 1940 when Watson said he wanted to fly. He had been inspired to seek his wings when, on July 4, 1927, he witnessed Charles Lindbergh landing his signature Spirit of St. Louis at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.

But on Columbus Day 1940, a recruiter at Long Island's Mitchel Field told Watson there were no positions for black pilots in the U.S. Army.

In an interview with Newsday on his 90th birthday, Watson said he got back into his mother's Buick Special and drove back to his New Jersey home.

"I cursed all the way to the Triborough Bridge, listening to Benny Goodman do 'Sing, Sing, Sing,' " said Watson, who still had the Army's rejection letter. "And I promised I would never give up."

Things turned in his favor the next year, when pressure by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People forced the War Department to set up an Army program that opened pilot training to black men.

Watson completed the program, based at Tuskegee Army Air Field, in Alabama, as a fighter pilot, then flew missions over North Africa and Europe.

While at Tuskegee, he met Edna Webster, a civilian employee at the airfield, and they were married on Dec. 17, 1943.

Watson often said it was an administrative mistake that led to his early return to the United States, setting in motion his role as an organizer of the Tuskegee Airmen. With his wartime service in Europe over, Watson became an Army flight instructor, helping train other black pilots.

In that position, he became familiar with almost all of the roughly 1,000 pilots who graduated from the Tuskegee program - highly trained fliers who after the war were barred by racial discrimination from getting jobs in the commercial airline industry.

Watson said when he retired from the military in 1965 to become an affirmative action specialist for the FAA, he made the integration of commercial cockpits a priority.

In the past two decades he crisscrossed the country for speaking engagements and air-show visits to bring the all-black flight program - which had been all but ignored by history - into the American consciousness. In 1997, Congress honored graduates of the Tuskegee program with the Congressional Gold Medal - the nation's highest civilian award.

"He was Genesis for us," said Bill Wheeler, 87, who trained under Watson at Walterboro Army Air Field in South Carolina. "He was one of the first to graduate the program, knew the history and knew everyone there. It's a very big loss for all of us."

At his 90th birthday celebration, several black airline employees traveled from as far away as Denver to attend, saying without his advocacy, their careers might never have gotten off the ground.

Watson said helping to pave the way for others was among his life's most satisfying accomplishments. "I've done so much I'm proud of," he said later. "That's the real reward."

In addition to his wife and son, Watson is survived by another son, Spann Marlowe Watson, of Silver Spring, Md., and daughters Cynthia Hopson, of Bratenahl, Ohio, and Dianne Capers, of Hempstead. Another son, Capt. Orrin Watson, an Air Force flier, died in 1981.

Funeral arrangements were incomplete.