Raymond Cassagnol, a Haitian pilot and a member of the Tuskegee Airmen, the famed group of Black military aviators during World War II, has died. He was 102. Cassagnol died June 24 at his home in Florida, according his daughter, Dominique Cassagnol Ballacchino. Cassagnol was one of three Haitian servicemen initially selected to join an experimental program in Tuskegee, Alamaba, for Black soldiers seeking to train as pilots after the Army Air Corps was forced to admit Black Americans. The Haitian serviceman wrote in his memoir that he was shocked by the prejudice he encountered in the American South and opted to stay close to the training field.
