Ted Lumpkin, original Tuskegee Airman, dies from COVID-19 at 100
Updated Jan 09, 2021;
Posted Jan 09, 2021
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. Memorial in Washington. Lumpkin has died from complications of the coronavirus, it was announced Friday, Jan. 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)AP
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By Joseph Wilkinson New York Daily News (Tribune News Service)
Theodore “Ted” Lumpkin, one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen of World War II, died Dec. 26 from COVID-19. He was 100.
Tuskegee Airmen Charles McGee Turns 101
By Sentinel News Service
Tuskegee Airmen Charles McGee at the LA Sentinel (LA Sentinel Photo)
Brigadier General Charles Edward McGee, one of the last living Tuskegee Airmen, turns 101-year-old, where he celebrated in Bethesda Maryland, waving the American flag as well-wishers drove by while some celebrated, cheering from a distance. The event even had a surprise fly-over of a P-51 aircraft, the same plane he flew in the war.
A decorated veteran and Airforce fighter pilot in World War II, McGee was born in 1919 in Cleveland, Ohio. His mother died during the birth of his sister while he was very young and eventually, he and his siblings relocated with their father to Illinois. McGee had been attending the University of Illinois when World War II broke out.
U.S. Army (retired) General Lloyd Austin speaks after being formally nominated to be Secretary of the Department of Defense by U.S. President-elect Joe Biden at the Queen Theatre on December 09, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The Tuskegee Airmen have come out in support of Gen.
Lloyd Austin, President-elect
Joe Biden‘s nominee to serve as the 28th Secretary of Defense, amid expressed opposition from some U.S. Senators who have signaled they would not support his nomination.
In a letter provided exclusively to
theGrio, the Tuskegee Airmen Inc. national office expressed their support for Austin, a retired four-star Army general who served 41 years in the armed forces before his retirement in 2016. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Gen. Lloyd would become the first Black American to serve as the nation’s defense secretary.