A last interview with Dr. Brown

To the editor:

Regarding Anthony Capote’s July 7th news article on the passing of Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, there are a number of clarifications in order.  First, Dr. Brown told me that there were three units of the Tuskegee Airmen.  Two were composed of P-51 Mustang fighter pilots, and the third was a heavy bomber group flying either B-24 Liberators or B-17 Flying Fortresses.  The P-51 Mustang in its successive versions was arguably the best fighter of WWII, powered as it was by the famous Rolls-Royce Merlin engine and heavily armed and armored.  In his P-51, Dr. Brown was among our greatest air aces.

Further, your reporter refers to an interview granted by Dr. Brown on May 12th.  I was the individual who interviewed him in his Riverdale apartment on behalf of the New York Public Library’s extraordinary oral history initiative.  “Remembering Riverdale: Our Neighborhood Oral History Project” is just one of a number of neighborhood oral history projects ongoing or now completed in various NYC neighborhoods, e.g. Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Stapleton (Staten Island).  Readers should go to oralhistory.nypl.org to see what has been accomplished by an enthusiastic cadre of volunteers thus far.  I am both proud and grateful to be involved in this project.

Finally, when our interview was over, Dr. Brown graciously walked me to the door of his apartment and before I left, he said “Sam, the only antidote to prejudice is excellence”.  Quite a man . . .

Sam Gellens, Ph.D.