Theodore Lumpkin Jr (December 30, 1919 – December 26, 2020) was an American military officer.

Early life and education

Lumpkin was born in Los Angeles and was educated at

Jefferson High School This is a list of memorials to Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd president of the United States and the author of the United States Declaration of Independence. Buildings Elementary schools *Jefferson Elementary School, in Cammack Village, Arkansas *Thoma ...

. He attended Los Angeles City College from 1938 to 1940, graduating with an associate degree in mathematics and continued his studies at University of California Los Angeles. The Second World War had commenced, but the USA was formally neutral until the end of 1941.

Military career

Lumpkin was drafted in 1942. After basic training, he completed officer cadet school. He was made a second lieutenant and assigned to the 100th Fighter Squadron based at Tuskegee, Alabama. At the time, the US military was segregated by race and this was an all black unit. Due to his eyesight, he became an air combat intelligence officer and briefed pilots before missions. He served in Italy in 1944 where the squadron acted as escorts for bombers and was based at the Ramitelli Air Base as part of the

332nd Fighter Group The 332d Expeditionary Operations Group is a provisional air expeditionary group of the United States Air Force's Air Combat Command, currently active. It was inactivated on 8 May 2012 and reactivated 16 November 2014. The group forms part of ...

. Lumpkin left active service in January 1946 with the rank of captain. After the end of the war he became a member of the Air Force Reserves and finally retired in 1979 with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was active in the post-war military association of the Tuskegee Airmen Inc. as a national board member and also was president of the Los Angeles chapter. Lumpkin was a board member of the Tuskegee Airmen Scholarship Foundation. Lumpkin was one of the surviving Tuskegee airmen who attended by invitation the inauguration of US President Obama in 2009.

Later life

After the war, he graduated in sociology from the University of Southern California. He also met and married Georgia. He began working as a social worker in 1947 and in 1953 took a master's degree in social work at University of Southern California. He later had his own real estate agency and continued to work in it when over 100. Lumpkin died from complications caused by COVID-19 on December 26, 2020, at the age of 100, four days before his 101st birthday.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lumpkin, Theodore 1919 births 2020 deaths Tuskegee Airmen African-American centenarians American centenarians Military personnel from Los Angeles University of Southern California alumni Los Angeles City College alumni Men centenarians Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in California 21st-century African-American people