A Tuskegee Airman during World War II, awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, and later became the first dean of the School of Business at North Carolina Central University. He earned a bachelor's degree in French from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri in 1941. In 1943, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps and became one of 1,000 black men who trained to be pilots, navigators and bombardiers during the war. Commissioned as a second lieutenant in December 1943, he served as the pilot of a B-25 bomber for the rest of the war. He was preparing for deployment with his all-black 477th Bombardment Group to the Pacific when the war ended. He said he was taught to fly by black civilians. He arrived at Camp Crowder, Missouri, with twenty one young white men to see if the Army would take him. At five feet seven inches tall, he had to weigh one hundred twenty five pounds to be accepted. He said he ate bananas when he got off the bus, took and passed the written exam, ate lunch and did not go to the bathroom until he was weighed and was exactly one hundred twenty five pounds. Of the twenty one men on the bus, only two of the young men passed the written and physical exam. After the war he received an MBA from the University of Chicago in 1947, and joined the faculty of the Commerce Department of North Carolina Central University. He received his PHd in business administration from Ohio State University in 1953. In 1997, he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal with other surviving Tuskegee Airmen. Was married for sixty eight years. He often said, they had been through a lot of adversity and had conquered it. Many of his peers became bank Presidents, College Presidents, Politicians and earned doctoral degrees.