One of the famed Tuskegee Airmen — the first Black pilots in the segregated U.S. military and among the most respected fighter pilots of World War II — has died from complications of the coronavirus, it was announced Friday.
Theodore Lumpkin Jr. was just days short of his 101st birthday. Lumpkin, a Los Angeles native, died Dec. 26, according to a statement from Los Angeles City College, which he attended from 1938 to 1940.
FILE - In this Aug. 3, 2011, file photo, Harry E. Johnson Sr., left, president & CEO of the Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation, takes Tuskegee Airmen, including Theodore Lumpkin Jr., center, and Dabney Montgomery, right, on a tour of the Martin Luther King Jr.