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The Death of a Tuskegee Airman
By Eliz Dowdy
Prior to the opening of the film “Red Tails”, the nation was abuzz with the antics of those Black pilots who made history, shattered ethnic myths, and survived the prevailing thoughts of the day to succeed beyond anyone's expectations.
Thursday morning, January 19, one of those men, Luther Jefferson, left planet
earth. He came to the Victor Valley as an airman in the sixties. A Victorville resident and retired service member, Ivory Woods told the Precinct Reporter that when he came to George AFB in 1966 he was already a Line Chief at the airbase. A line chief is in charge of a cadre of planes; it is his responsibility to make sure the aircraft is flight-ready.
Luther Jefferson retired as a Chief Master Sergeant in 1972 after serving 30 years in the Army Air Corps/Air Force. With the end of hostilities, the Black pilots were decommissioned as officers; he rejoined the regular Army Air Corps in 1946.
He was born in a small parish (county) in Louisiana on March 23, 1923, in a village called Cotton Valley. He attended the local elementary school for Blacks, Cotton Valley Elementary. There was no high school for Blacks in the immediate area, so Jefferson walked 18 miles from Cotton Valley to Webster High School. Having no transportation, the Black kids would walk on Sunday night, where they were able to room with a local resident by the name of Mrs. Greenard. On Friday they would either catch a ride or walk back home, work on the farm on Saturday and repeat the regimen on Sunday. The high school only taught three grades, 9th through 11th, for seven months of the year. Summer months were for farm work. Jefferson was fortunate to attend one year at Grambling College before being drafted into the Army Air Corps in March 1943. He was the fifth of eleven children, and five of the six brothers entered military service together. Three joined the Army, one joined the Navy, and one joined the Air Force.
The Precinct Reporter received biographical notes handwritten by Jefferson circa 1988. He goes to great pain to describe a country boy; he rode a bus for the first time when he went to basic training at Greenberg, North Carolina Army Air Field at 19 years of age. Four days into his basic training he got KP (kitchen police) duty for refusing to pick up cigarette butts that others had dropped on the ground. Jefferson was not aware of military rules, yet it was while he was doing mess hall duty that he noticed a posting on the dining room bulletin board stating they were selecting airmen to test for pilot training at Tuskegee Air Base. He took the test and was selected. The training was grueling, designed to fortify the directive that had been issued by the Army in 1925 stating that Negroes were not suited for flight. First, because they lacked the intelligence, second, they lacked the courage, and third, they did not possess the emotional stability necessary for military combat pilots. The Tuskegee experiment was to prove to those in the back cabinet (Blacks) that their demand for Black participation in all facets of military engagement was preposterous because the race was not suited for such demanding tasks.
Jefferson, the country boy who had never seen a telephone, never rode a bus, was a natural for taking the insults and jeers of his superiors, and graduating. History tells us the drop rate was astronomical, but the survivors forged a new course in history.
Jefferson's home-going services were equally divided with mourners, Black and white. Giving remarks about his life were Tom Moffett, a white man; Wray Gray, a retired line chief, an African American man. They were united in their description of Jefferson as a quiet man who never really spoke much about the Tuskegee days because of the pain, but was proud of the accomplishments and opportunities to serve his country. Moffett spoke about the putting green on Jefferson's front lawn; he was one of the first African American Master Sergeants in the Air Force. Gray described him as a true hero who opened doors for others to follow, a trail blazer, a pioneer.
The pastoral overview of his life was brought by Pastor George Beardsley of High Desert Church in Victorville. He was compared to the fictional character in the movie “Lightning.”
Elected officials sending their representatives with proclamations were Victorville Mayor Ryan McEachron; Steve Knight, 36th Assembly District, and First District Supervisor Brad Mitzenfelt. Congressman Buck McKeon sent a flag to the family that had flown over the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
He was eulogized by his granddaughter, Makena Moniz Jefferson. She told the attendees that her grandfather was personally acquainted with racism. He had logged over 5,000 hours of flying time in several aircraft including the P-40; he said they wanted to fly and be treated as Americans. In the 53 years of marriage to her grandmother he always looked at her as though she was still the pretty young thing walking across the park.
Luther Jefferson--Tuskegee Airman, Chief Master Sergeant, husband, father, grandfather, country boy--was a man whose life left an impact crater that cannot be denied. He was laid to rest with full military honors.
His family includes a brother, W J (Avis) Jefferson; sister, Alice (GW) Shaw; children, Deborah Jefferson, Dr. Yvonne (Donald) Atkinson, Andrew (Melanie) Jefferson; grandchildren, Travis (Susan) Jefferson, Eric, Daniel and Aaron Atkinson, Makena Moniz Jefferson, and great grandson, Nolan Luther Jefferson.
