Roscoe Brown

The son of a dentist, Roscoe C. Brown, Jr. graduated from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in 1942 and attended Springfield College in Massachusetts. Upon America's entry into World War II, he was able to get a commission in the U.S. Army Air Corps, becoming one of the "Tuskegee Airmen." He was a fighter pilot of the 332nd Fighter Group, flying a P-51 Mustang--he was one of the first African-American pilots to shoot down a Luftwaffe plane, in this case a Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter. After the war ended, Captain Brown attended New York University and earned both a masters'degree and a doctorate and spent a lengthy career as an educator, eventually becoming president of Bronx Community College in the Bronx, New York City. He subsequently ended his long and distinguished career as director of the Center for Urban Education Policy at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York.