Education
After Steward graduated college and when Army Air Corps began allowing blacks to enlist and become pilots, he enlisted in 1942.
After Steward graduated college and when Army Air Corps began allowing blacks to enlist and become pilots, he enlisted in 1942.
According to Steward, the United States Air Force brought together black men—specifically black athletes—from throughout the United States to be trained at Tuskegee Institute. When they were initially deployed in Europe, they were initially ignored and often called the "Spookwaffe". Their mission was to fly fighter aircraft to escort bombers.
Once their reputation for providing effective air support for bombers became widely known, they started receiving special request for bomber support.
Steward describe how he became a Tuskegee Airman:
When I left school to sign up for the air force, I found out I could not go into the service with my friends. I was the only black on the basketball team
We had decided among ourselves that we would all go into the air force. The others did. When I went down to sign up, they didn"t know what to do with medical
Just told me they couldn"t send me to the air force.
Ten months later I was finally called. That"s when they decided what they could do with medical I was sent to Tuskegee, an all-segregated base, deep in the heart of Alabama.
(p 187)
After receiving segregated training at the Tuskegee Army Air Field, he was sent to Italy in 1944 with the 100th Fighter Squadron.
From Capodichino Air Base in Naples, Italy he flew a number of missions in Bell P-39 Airacobras and Curtiss P-40 Warhawks. He was subsequently based in Ramitelli Airfield where he flew many more missions in North American P-51 Mustangs.
In total, he flew 143 missions. After the war and after his return to Los Angeles, he helped to organize the Los Angeles chapter of, Incorporated. and to found a scholarship foundation in the name of the He attended Jefferson High School.
In 1937, he entered Santa Barbara State College where he would become the first black captain of the Gauchos team
In 1941, he led the Gauchos to the semifinals of the 1941 National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Men"s Division I Basketball Tournament but was not allowed to play because he was black. Steward graduated from college in 1941 with a business degree. In 1942, when United States Army Air Forces began to allow blacks enter and become pilots, Steward was allowed to enlist and he was sent to the Tuskegee Institute for training.
Because of this, he went to real estate school and obtained a real estate license.
In the 1950s he helped to integrate parts of Los Angeles by facilitating home sales. On December 14, 2014, he came down with a cold that led to pneumonia.
He died on December 17 in Community Memorial Hospital of natural causes at the age of 95.
