William Henry Maurice "Moe" Thomas Jr.

Tuskegee Airman Second Lieutenant William Henry Maurice “Moe” Thomas, Jr., died Good Friday, April 6, 2007, at Southern Maryland Hospital, Clinton.. He was born on August 15, 1921 in Portsmouth, the Tidewater area of Virginia, the middle son of the former Miss Ida Geraldine Steele and the Rev. William Henry Maurice Thomas, Sr. The legacy left through his life works reflects the richness of an America transformed by racial politics over much of the 20th century. His outlook was shaped by tradition and family prominence enjoyed in the years before he was born, as well as the change wrought by hardships endured after the family businesses were lost to the depression of 1921.

The Rev. Thomas was noted as one of the foremost Negro entrepreneurs of the region and the time in which he lived. He along with his father and brother operated the Muchrite Markets of Portsmouth and the Tidewater National Bank and Trust Company. Together they were the first African-Americans in the Commonwealth of Virginia to charter a bank since Reconstruction. Ida Thomas was descended from the well-known Henry Bernard family which was prominent in Tidewater affairs, and Mr. Joseph Steele, a shipwright.

The family relocated to Jamaica in Queens, NY, in the early 1920s. The Rev. Thomas became a chef at Belmont Park in Hollis, NY, and was aided in carrying the family through lean years by Mrs. Thomas’ brother, Edward Errington Steele. Mr. Steele was a blind pianist renowned in the New York area during the 1920s and 1930s. He performed at the Acolian and Steinway Halls in New York City. He frequently performed at high society gatherings at the then Great Estates on Long Island, and for Bon Voyage parties for the Cunard steamship lines. In written comments about his life in the Depression era, Moe described grim strategies for survival for people without such a lifeline, and how “daily bread” was provided for nearly everyone by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration.

Moe graduated in 1939 from Boys’ High School where he had been a member of the Aviation Society, a bass in the Senior Glee Club, and lettered in track and cross-country sports. A lifelong interest in photography and writing was sparked in these years. He was elected Art Editor of the Senior “Recorder” magazine and yearbook. Outside of school, Moe served as Vice President of the local chapter of the Youth Division of Marcus Garvey’s General Advancement Association in Jamaica. The President of the group, William Booth, went on to become a noted New York jurist.

Moe completed a course in commercial photography just after high school at the New York Evening School of Industrial Arts which helped him field a position as Reproduction Technician at the Brooklyn Army Base Terminal of the New York Port of Embarkation at Fort Hamilton. Troops shipped out from there for England as the war began. Moe made reproductions of outgoing troop and cargo ship manifests and maps and charts. These documents included the complicated set of mappings of the underwater harbor—including detailed chainings and mining—at Dakar, Senegal, prior to the American landings at the port. Moe’s position at the Army base exempted him from the draft. But when he heard the U.S. Army Air Corps was opening training to Negroes, he gave up his exemption and volunteered. It was 1942 when he took the Army Air Corps Qualification Examination. He passed with a high score but was not called right away.

Eager to contribute to the war effort, Moe succeeded in gaining entry to the Army Specialized Training Program. He was scheduled to go to Camp Wheeler, Georgia when the USAAC discovered him on a list of candidates. He was called into basic training at Keesler Field, Mississippi, then was sent to the 320th AAC College Training Detachment stationed in the Emory buildings at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial. He did not become a pilot, but received Normal School Certification in 1943. He was assigned to Aerial Gunnery training at Tyndall Field, Florida, and was then sent to the Air Navigation Training Program at Hondo, Texas. An award winning student and mentor to some of his fellows, Moe was commissioned a Second Lieutenant on 9 December 1944. He was later assigned to become alternate to Lt. William Collier, Air Navigator to General Benjamin O. Davis. As a member of the 477th Composite Group, Moe became Lead Navigator of Flight “C” of the 617th Bomb Squadron. In related duties, Moe also became Base Information and Education Officer at Tuskegee AACB and Photographic Officer at Lockbourne AACB, Ohio.

Moe’s experiences traveling extensively through the South as a member of the Armed Services in the days of segregation exposed him to a world alien even to the hardships of growing up in Queens during the Depression. He reported an “inner need” to respond to the bigotry he encountered, and felt an urgency to counter “the virulent hatred and inner feelings of inferiority” beneath racism. In a brief life history he wrote, Moe described waiting until he had the power of a commissioned officer to act:

“Relying on the power of the law as expressed in Executive Orders of the President and War Department Adjutant General Orders, I led a courageous group of ten of my fellow officers to desegregate first the Base Chapel at Hondo, (‘sitting in the choir loft makes you closer to God’ as the Chaplain would put it). Later at San Angelo AACB [we gained access to] use…the mid-center section of the theater….[We overcame discrimination at] the Post Exchange store [where we were told] ‘if you put it on for size, you bought it;’ and ‘step to the end of the food counter for service;’ and ‘step to the rear’ [when they rode] the olive drab painted Government bus that ran from the base to the town;’ and, ‘Colored personnel are only accommodated at the Base Quartermaster Store on Thursdays.’”

He wrote:

“The barely literate Base Commander, “George F. Palmer. West Pont. Twenny-six;” (talk about Affirmative Action) resisted us until one day, a rough looking Inspector General swooped in his silver Cessna, dwelt but an hour or so and took off back to Washington. We won everything we sought excepting admission to the Base Officer’s Club. We were kept out by the stratagem of setting up a tar paper barrack and denominating it “The Student Officer’s Club”. This action was taking place at about the same time as the alleged mutiny of the valorous 105 colored flying officers at Atterbury, Indiana. As we know, perseveringly bigoted authorities were able to bring only one Courts-Martial against one of these men and that one did not succeed. 1944 was a year which saw much racial unrest in the armed services and predictably so. As many of both Northern and Southern pundits had predicted, it was clear that if a Colored man was to be allowed to offer up his life to his Country, he might rightly expect to be respected and to be treated as a man; both in and upon his return from the armed services.”

Moe was an historian in the spirit that a nation should never forget its conduct nor fail to repair injuries to its peoples. He wove his passion for social justice with a penchant for the sciences, especially engineering. The one sustained his spirit; the other reflected his drive to see himself as a professional and provide for his family. He left active duty for the reserves at Mitchell Field in October 1946. His positions since included training as a Missile Ordinance Technician with Dr. Maurice M. Apstein at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, DC; performing research on the rhenium bolometers used in the first SERB weather satellites at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD; and thereafter worked largely as a Logistical Systems Analyst through Contractual Industrial Engineering. He said that among the more interesting assignments was conducting computerized Flight Simulator courses for the Navy at Lemoore NAS and at Edwards AFB in California. He also enjoyed an assignment as Maintainability Engineer in which he felt privileged to work extensively on pressure transducers for nuclear submarines and conduct maintainability studies aboard the U.S.S. Eisenhower.

He was active in the Civil Rights Movement from 1964-1970, serving as President of the South County Organization for Public Action and Board Member on the Fellowship for Equal Rights, and in the activities of the NAACP and various churches in Prince George’s County. Working with his eldest son, Maurice III, Moe assisted with provisioning wiring for Resurrection City in 1968. He performed many installations of communications equipment used by the public figures who were active in this protest.

He valued improving the future of the young people generally and improving the lot for young African-Americans in particular. He succeeded in launching a very successful school for disadvantaged youth on behalf of the National Warm Air Heating and Air Conditioning Association and the U.S. Department of Labor programs under the Manpower Development and Training Act (MDTA). The Laurel MDTA School was housed in the old Laurel High School Building and quickly launched a cadre of young people skilled enough to be considered journeymen in their trade. Equipment and materials from the school were later used to underwrite a vocational course incorporated into the Prince George’s County School system at Crossland High School, Temple Hills, MD.

Very active in his church and community, Moe served at various times as President of the Men’s Club of the Grace United Methodist Church, President of the Prince George’s County Civic Federation, and President and Historian of the Chapel Hill Citizens Association.

In various roles, Moe proposed a comprehensive War-on-Poverty Demonstration Grant Project to develop a Regional Culture Center in Chapel Hill (1965); a Capital Improvement Project to increase the road quality and public safety for the section of Livingston Road running through Chapel Hill (1972); he prepared an Historical Brief on behalf of the Chapel Hill Citizens Association sent to the Maryland National Capital Parks and Planning Commission (1983) which was recognized as “noteworthy…read with great interest,” and instrumental in establishing a better working relationship between the county planning board and the citizenry of Chapel Hill. In 1997 he prepared an extensive historical review that was submitted to the Supervisor of Assessments for Prince George’s County for recognition of the non-profit and tax-exempt status of the Citizens Association. He was subsequently quoted by the Washington Post in an article summarizing debate on the proposed expansion of the Wilson Bridge. He was similarly recognized as a leader in a 1991 Post article on debates over improvements to Livingston Road, whose origins are so old they themselves are the subject of debate among historians.

Moe’s passion for the people and the preservation of history turned him into an accidental historian who honed his skills sufficiently for his work to be included in a published volume on the African-American history of Prince George’s County. He valued his community as “…the oldest known settlement of Negroes in Maryland,” and succeeded in having its roots acknowledged by the placement of historical markers on its main route, Livingston Road. He saw himself as “…recently a happy participant in a combined effort to rescue an Unmarked Slave Grave site” to preserve the archeological import of the Tent Landing parcel.

For a time, after retirement, he maintained membership in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics; the Industrial Engineering Society, and the United States Naval Institute. He was married twice, first to the former Lizzie Lou Whitacre (divorced; deceased), and then to the former Gloria Winter Askew (deceased). He is survived by six children: Yvette Morton (Leo) of Leawood, KS; Maurice Thomas III (Margaret) and Patricia Yorkman (Clifton) of Fort Washington, MD; Hugh Thomas (Dianne) of Herndon, VA; Helen Goode (John) of St. Charles, MD; and Rosa Thomas Lawrence, Ph.D. (the Rev. Matthew) of Santa Rosa, CA; twelve grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. The family are grateful for his life and the many lives he touched. Expressions of sympathy are respectfully requested as donations to one of the following organizations he valued so well: the Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. Scholarship Fund; Grace United Methodist Church Building Fund; and the Prince George’s County Civic Federation.

His viewing will take place on Wednesday, April 11th, 9:00a.m. until service time 11:00a.m. at Grace United Methodist Church, 11700 Old Fort Road, Fort Washington, Maryland 20744. Interment Private. Arrangements entrusted to Thornton Funeral Home, P.A., Pomonkey, Maryland.