Lewis A. Jackson

Lewis Akin Jackson was born on the twenty-ninth of December 1912 at Angola, in Steuben County, Indiana — by family account the only Black household in the town. As a boy he built model airplanes and read of cross-wind landings in encyclopedias, working from the age of eight to help his family. In 1927, at fifteen, he took his first flight in an OX-5 Swallow, and the sky claimed him for life.

Through the 1930s Jackson barnstormed across Indiana and Ohio, earning his way through college with the money his flying brought in. He gained his Transport Pilot's License in 1937 and, in 1939, qualified as a commercial pilot with an instructor rating — the same year he completed a Bachelor of Science in education at what is now Indiana Wesleyan University. He joined Cornelius Coffey's flying school in Chicago before advanced training carried him south.

In October 1940 he came to Tuskegee, Alabama, where he earned an airframe and powerplant mechanic's license, taught ground school, and rose to Director of Training for the pioneering 99th Pursuit Squadron. On three occasions his students placed first among more than twenty schools of the Southeast Army Air Corps Training Command — a measure of the man's exacting, patient craft.

After the war Jackson turned to higher education, twice serving as president of Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, while examining more than four hundred pilots as an FAA flight examiner and inventing the NAV-KIT navigation aid and experimental aircraft. He died on the eighth of January 1994. Airfield and library alike now bear his name — Lewis A. Jackson, who taught a people to rise, and rose.