R.I.P. Tuskegee Airman Dr. James B. Williams 1919-2016 Age: 97
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LAS CRUCES – One of the famed Tuskegee Airmen who supported the Allied victory in World War II, New Mexico native Dr. James B. Williams, died Wednesday at age 97.
Williams was one of the few remaining survivors who served in the U.S. Army Air Forces program that trained African-Americans for the war effort – a pioneering group that would play a key role in the desegregation of the military.
Before 1940, African-Americans were barred from flying for the U.S. military, according to Tuskegee Airmen Inc., a national organization with chapters in New Mexico that supports the airmen’s legacy. Civil rights groups lobbied against that ban, leading to the formation of an all-African-American pursuit squadron based in Tuskegee, Ala., in 1941.
From 1942 through 1946, 994 pilots received their wings at Tuskegee.
Born to Jasper and Clara Belle Williams – the first black woman to graduate from what is now New Mexico State University – Williams was studying medicine when he joined the military in 1942.
He was selected to attend the Medical Administrative Officers Candidate School at Camp Pickett, Va., but he wanted to become a pilot and asked for transfer to the Army Air Forces, according to TheHistoryMakers.com, an online collection of African-American oral histories.
He received basic training as an aviation cadet at Boca Raton Club, Fla., and technical training at Yale University, where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Forces. Williams served as an engineering officer in the 99th Fighter Squadron. He did not see combat.
In 1942, Williams was among the more than 100 black officers who tried to integrate a whites-only officers’ club at Freeman Field in Indiana. They were arrested, but all were eventually exonerated and their military records cleared.
The incident became a bellwether for the end of segregation in the military in 1945.
Williams’ daughter Brenda Payton Jones recalled hearing the story about Freeman Field and feeling “just so incredibly proud.”
Williams told his superiors: “If I can’t go into the officers’ club, then I shouldn’t be an officer,” Payton Jones said. “That was the way we heard it growing up. “When I thought of a young man, 21, standing up on his own for what he knew was right … .”
After his military service, Williams obtained a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from NMSU and earned his M.D. from Creighton University School of Medicine. He founded the Williams Medical Clinic in Chicago with two brothers, practiced as a general surgeon and eventually retired in Las Cruces.
In 2007, Williams and other Tuskegee Airmen won the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by Congress.
He is survived by his wife, Willeen; daughter Brenda Payton Jones, a journalist in Oakland, Calif.; and son Dr. James B. Williams II, a Minneapolis surgeon.