WWII pilot who broke color barrier with Tuskegee Airmen dies

Tom Sharpe | The New Mexican

11/9/2007 -

Robert Weldon "Bob" Lawrence, one of the original Tuskegee Airmen who broke the color barrier for military pilots, died at home Thursday night in Santa Fe, where he had lived for 17 years.

Lawrence, 85, was born and grew up in New Jersey. After the United States entered World War II, he enlisted in the Army, was commissioned as an officer and was accepted to a pilot-training program for African Americans in Tuskegee, Ala.

In an interview in The New Mexican a decade ago, Lawrence said the first 45 young black pilot trainees faced skepticism from whites who believed blacks lacked the skills to fly. A white instructor at Tuskegee was badly beaten in a bar by whites who were upset he was "teaching niggers how to fly," Lawrence said.

First lady Eleanor Roosevelt "came to Tuskegee to see for herself what was going on," Lawrence recalled. "Against the advice of staff, she wanted to fly with the chief (black) instructor. And she did fly with him. She later reported back to her husband that the black pilots were as capable as anyone else to fly airplanes."

While many of the Tuskegee Airmen never saw combat, Lawrence received his pilot's license in June 1944 and flew a P-51 Mustang fighter on 33 combat missions into Germany and other countries from bases in Italy.

After the war, he applied to fly for civilian airlines, but, like other black military pilots, he was told that "because they'd been trained for combat ... it wasn't appropriate to hire them for civilian flying," said his widow, Ernestine "Tina" Lawrence.

Lawrence married and moved to California to attend San Jose State University, where he received a bachelor's degree in accounting in 1949. After working as an accountant for several years, he returned to San Jose State to get his elementary-school teaching credentials.

He worked as a teacher and counselor in Milpitas, Calif., then as an assistant superintendent in San Jose. In 1983, he was appointed deputy superintendent of public instruction with the California Department of Education and held that position until retiring in 1986.

Lawrence's first wife, Claudia, with whom he had two children, died in the mid-1970s. In 1978, he married Ernestine Roberts, who had been born and raised in Santa Fe. In 1990, they moved to her hometown and lived after that on Calle de Sebastian.

In Santa Fe, Lawrence was a volunteer serving on the boards of the Presbyterian Hospice Center and the Rape Crisis Center, was a founder of the Charles "Cocoa" Maxwell scholarship foundation, was a senior warden and active member of St. Bede's Episcopal Church, and was an avid golfer.

In April 2002, as he landed in Albuquerque after a trip to California, Lawrence had symptoms similar to those of a heart attack. At the hospital, an allergic reaction to an iodine dye given to him through a catheter caused his kidneys to fail, requiring him to be on dialysis and have his left leg amputated.

Lawrence received an artificial leg, learned to use it and even began playing golf with the prosthesis. In 2005, he won a trophy in his class at an amputee golf tournament in Albuquerque.

In recent years, Lawrence received a Congressional Gold Medal for his service with the Tuskegee Airmen, an honorary doctorate from Tuskegee University and a Santa Fe Living Treasure award.

A son, Gregory Lawrence of San Jose, died three years ago. Survivors include his daughter, Judith of Chico, Calif.; a grandson, Robert Weldon Lawrence and his wife, Penny, of Los Gatos, Calif.; a sister, Dorothy Gantz of North Highlands, Calif.; and a brother, Richard Lawrence of Dover, Del.

Funeral services are set for 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 17, at St. Bede's Episcopal Church. Burial will be in Arlington National Cemetery.

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.