Spann Watson seated and seated in his pilot

'WE'RE LIVING HIS DREAM'
A Tuskegee airman who was inspired by Lindbergh

BY MARTIN C. EVANS
Newsday Staff Writer

August 14, 2006

Beneath a picnic tent on his Westbury lawn, while a 17-piece band played swing-era tunes under a sunset sky, a beaming Spann Watson danced a birthday two-step with his granddaughter as more than 100 friends and neighbors crowded around.

Watson had much to smile about as he reached the eve of his 90th year Saturday night: he had achieved a boyhood goal of being a pilot, and had raised five successful children who had given him seven grandchildren.

Along the way, he had also helped win World War II, end racial segregation in the U.S. military and crack commercial aviation's unspoken ban on black employees.

"I've done so much I'm proud of," Watson, one of the original Tuskegee Airmen, said later. "That's the real reward."

Friends of Watson came from as far away as Colorado to honor a man known in history books as one of the first black Americans to train with an all-black fighter group at Tuskegee, Ala., then fly combat missions for the Army Air Forces beginning in 1942.