Opening the Sky: Dr. Robert Maceo Hamlin and West Virginia’s Historic Black Aviation Breakthrough

Dr. Robert Maceo Hamlin, Part Two

In Part One of our series, we encountered Dr. Robert Maceo Hamlin walking through Wheeling’s most neglected Black neighborhoods in 1949. He led a newspaper reporter into overcrowded tenements, exposed dangerous living conditions, and demanded that the city recognize the humanity of families trapped by segregation. He advocated for a colored YMCA for young boys.

Part Two reveals another side of this remarkable man.

Ten years before that devastating housing exposé, Dr. Hamlin helped open an opportunity that must once have seemed almost unreachable: the chance for young Black West Virginians to become pilots.

On September 22, 1939, the Wheeling News-Register published a photograph of Hamlin in his American Legion uniform beneath an extraordinary headline:

“Civilian Pilot Training Available to Colored Men”

The accompanying article reported that West Virginia State College had been selected to provide federally supported aviation instruction to Black students. Even more remarkably, the college’s president personally credited Dr. Hamlin with helping to make it possible.

This was not simply the announcement of a new college course.

It was a challenge to a nation that doubted whether Black men belonged in the cockpit—and a crucial early step toward the achievements of the Tuskegee Airmen.

A Letter of Gratitude Arrives in Wheeling

The news reached Dr. Hamlin in a letter from Dr. John W. Davis, president of West Virginia State College, now West Virginia State University.

Davis informed him that the federal Civil Aeronautics Authority had approved a Civilian Pilot Training program at the college. His letter made clear that Hamlin had played a meaningful role in obtaining the opportunity:

“Through your splendid cooperation the Civilian Pilot Training program…will be available to Negro men at West Virginia State College.”

Davis congratulated Hamlin and thanked him for the part he had played in bringing about what the college president called a “happy result” for West Virginia State and the entire state.

The surviving newspaper article does not explain the precise nature of Hamlin’s work. It does not tell us whom he contacted, what meetings he attended, what influence he used, or what resistance he helped overcome.

But it establishes something important: West Virginia State’s president believed Dr. Hamlin’s cooperation had helped make the program possible.

That recognition expands our understanding of Hamlin. He was not only a dentist, political leader, veteran, and housing advocate. He was also part of a statewide network working to create opportunities for Black young people in one of the most modern and prestigious fields of the twentieth century.

America Needed Pilots—but Excluded Black Americans

The timing of the announcement was dramatic.

Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Britain and France declared war two days later. Although the United States would not formally enter World War II until December 1941, the danger of a much larger conflict was already unmistakable.

America urgently needed pilots.

Congress had authorized the Civilian Pilot Training Program earlier in 1939, placing it under the Civil Aeronautics Authority. The program was officially civilian, but its importance to national defense was clear. Colleges across the country would provide ground instruction while nearby airfields supplied flight training.

Yet Black Americans faced an infuriating contradiction.

The nation needed aviators, but the Army Air Corps continued to claim that African Americans were unfit to become military pilots. Racist assumptions portrayed Black men as lacking the intelligence, judgment, courage, and technical ability required to fly advanced aircraft.

Black leaders understood that civilian aviation training could help destroy those claims.

Every Black student who mastered navigation, meteorology, aircraft controls, engine systems, emergency procedures, and solo flight became living evidence against the mythology of racial inferiority.

The struggle for access to the cockpit was therefore also a struggle for citizenship.

West Virginia State Makes History

West Virginia State College received federal authorization for its aviation program in September 1939. It became the first of six historically Black colleges approved by the Civil Aeronautics Authority to establish such a program.

Howard University, Hampton Institute, Tuskegee Institute, Lincoln University of Missouri, and Delaware State would also receive aviation programs.

The national Black press recognized the magnitude of West Virginia State’s achievement. The Pittsburgh Courier responded by declaring, “What we have just witnessed is a miracle.”

But the program was not a miracle. It was the product of planning, persistence, political skill, institutional preparation, and determined advocacy.

West Virginia State’s own history gives primary credit to three campus leaders:

• President John W. Davis

• Professor James C. Evans, director of trades and technical education

• Professor Joseph Grider, a certified pilot and officer of the National Airmen’s Association

The 1939 Wheeling News-Register article adds another important name to that history: Dr. Robert Maceo Hamlin.

The college leaders designed and pursued the program. Hamlin appears to have helped build the cooperation and support necessary to bring it to West Virginia State. The precise details await further research, but President Davis’s letter confirms that Hamlin’s contribution was known and valued at the time.

What the Students Would Learn

The program offered rigorous technical and practical training.

According to the News-Register, each student would receive 72 hours of ground instruction in classrooms and workshops. The curriculum would prepare students to understand the science and mechanics of flight before they took control of an airplane.

That instruction would be followed by approximately 35 to 50 hours of flying time at Wertz Field, the municipal airport located beside the West Virginia State campus in Institute.

Applicants generally had to be between eighteen and twenty-five years old and pass a demanding physical examination. The college recommended students who had completed at least one year of college.

The federal government paid West Virginia State for much of the instruction. Students were charged a $40 laboratory fee, while federal support covered ground school and hundreds of dollars in flight-training expenses for each participant.

Professor James C. Evans was placed in charge of the college program and made application forms available to interested students.

The opportunity was demanding, selective, and serious. These students were not being invited merely to observe airplanes or learn aviation theory.

They were being trained to fly.

From Newspaper Announcement to Takeoff

West Virginia State’s first pilot-training class began on November 14, 1939, less than two months after the News-Register announced the opportunity to Wheeling readers.

Students completed their academic instruction on campus and their flying lessons at nearby Wertz Field. Opened in 1930, Wertz had grass runways and already served commercial aviation in the Charleston area.

Now it became part of a bold educational experiment.

Young Black students who had grown up in a nation that restricted where they could live, study, work, eat, and travel were climbing into airplanes and learning to navigate the sky.

Their training required discipline and nerve. Student pilots had to understand weather, read instruments, calculate courses, control aircraft, respond to emergencies, and eventually fly alone.

Every successful takeoff carried a larger meaning.

Black aviators were proving that the barriers keeping them out of military cockpits were political—not physical, intellectual, or moral.

The Road to the Tuskegee Airmen

The Army Air Corps initially refused to accept Black graduates of the civilian programs into its officer flight training.

West Virginia State and Tuskegee Institute both sought permission to provide advanced pilot training. The federal government ultimately selected Tuskegee, while West Virginia State and the other participating Black colleges became feeder institutions for the program.

Dr. Davis responded by nominating two West Virginia State graduates for the first group of Black military aviation cadets:

George Spencer Roberts, a Fairmont native and member of West Virginia State’s Class of 1938, and Mac Ross, a Dayton, Ohio, native who graduated in 1940.

Thirteen cadets entered the first training class at Tuskegee. Only five completed it.

On March 7, 1942, Roberts and Ross stood among the first five Black military pilots to receive their wings from the United States Army Air Corps.

Roberts became commander of the historic 99th Pursuit Squadron. Ross later commanded the 100th Fighter Squadron. Both became part of the legendary body of aviators now remembered as the Tuskegee Airmen.

Several other West Virginia State students and graduates followed them into Tuskegee’s flying and support units.

The opportunity announced in Wheeling in September 1939 had become part of a direct path into American military history.

Rose Agnes Rolls Refuses to Remain on the Ground

The News-Register headline announced pilot training for young Black men, but the program’s influence soon reached a determined young woman.

Rose Agnes Rolls, a Fairmont native and West Virginia State student, wanted to fly.

When she first asked to join the program, Professor Evans reportedly hesitated because the training was intended to prepare men for possible military service. Rolls persisted. Evans sought guidance from federal officials, who eventually agreed that she could participate if she passed the same physical and mental examinations required of the men.

She passed.

Rolls learned to recover an airplane from a spin, fly upside down, land without engine power, and complete a solo cross-country flight using her compass and what she could see from the cockpit.

She became the first African American woman to fly solo through the Civilian Pilot Training Program.

In 1941, she traveled to Tuskegee with ten male aviators from West Virginia State and attempted to enter the military flight program. The men were considered; Rolls was rejected because she was a woman.

Her exclusion revealed that one b

arrier could fall while another remained firmly in place.

Nevertheless, Rose Agnes Rolls Cousins had already made history. Her achievement demonstrated that the opportunity Hamlin and others helped secure could reach beyond even the program’s original expectations.

West Virginia State University preserves her remarkable story, including the persistence that carried her from childhood fascination to solo flight.

More Than One Person Made the Breakthrough

History often reduces a major achievement to one famous individual. The creation of West Virginia State’s aviation program reminds us that progress usually requires a network.

President Davis supplied institutional vision and political leadership.

Professor Evans developed the technical program and directed its operation.

Professor Grider brought aviation experience and connections to the National Airmen’s Association.

Students accepted the challenge and proved the program’s value.

Black newspapers publicized the achievement.

Civil-rights organizations continued pressuring the military.

And, according to the evidence preserved in Wheeling, Dr. Hamlin used his own standing and relationships to help make the opportunity possible.

His contribution should not replace the work of the college’s leaders. It should be added to it.

The newspaper clipping reveals a connection between Wheeling’s Black civic leadership and one of the most important educational breakthroughs in West Virginia history.

Hamlin Was Investing in Young People

The 1939 article identifies Hamlin not only as a prominent dentist and former commander of Wheeling’s Black American Legion post, but also as the founder of Colored Boys State.

That description gives us another glimpse of his priorities.

Hamlin believed young Black men needed access to citizenship training, leadership development, professional education, and modern careers. He was working to prepare them for public life while racial segregation denied them equal access to existing institutions.

Aviation fit naturally into that vision.

Flight represented science, technology, discipline, courage, and the future. Helping young Black men enter aviation meant creating possibilities that reached far beyond one occupation.

A trained pilot could become an instructor, military officer, mechanic, administrator, engineer, or aviation advocate. Even those who did not pursue flying professionally would carry the confidence of mastering something the nation had insisted they could not do.

Hamlin was not simply helping students learn to operate airplanes.

He was helping a generation imagine itself differently.

A Brief Program With a Lasting Legacy

West Virginia State’s aviation program operated for only a few years.

In 1942, Wertz Field closed after the federal government acquired the airport and surrounding land for a wartime synthetic-rubber plant. The War Department also ended pilot programs at the six Black colleges and centralized military aviation training at Tuskegee.

But the program’s brief life should not be mistaken for limited influence.

It produced aviators who became members and leaders of the Tuskegee Airmen. It helped disprove racist claims about Black ability. It prepared students for military and civilian service. It opened aviation to a pioneering Black woman. It connected a historically Black college in West Virginia to the eventual integration of the United States armed forces.

West Virginia State’s official history describes the college’s contribution to the Tuskegee Airmen as substantial. Its pilots carried the training they received at Institute into the 99th Fighter Squadron and the 332nd Fighter Group, serving in North Africa and Europe.

The runway at Wertz Field is gone.

The achievement that began there is not.

From the Ground to the Sky

Part One of this series showed Dr. Hamlin confronting families trapped in degrading housing.

Part Two shows him helping young people rise into an entirely new world.

These stories may appear very different, but they came from the same conviction: Black West Virginians deserved more.

They deserved safe homes.

They deserved meaningful education.

They deserved professional opportunity.

They deserved recreation, political representation, military service, and the full privileges of citizenship.

And they deserved the chance to fly.

Dr. Hamlin understood that leadership required both protest and construction. He exposed what was wrong, but he also helped build what ought to exist.

In 1949, he led a reporter through Wheeling’s alleys so the city could no longer ignore the suffering on the ground.

In 1939, he helped open the sky.

Recovering Hamlin’s Place in the Story

The September 22, 1939, clipping raises exciting new research questions.

What exactly did Dr. Hamlin do to support West Virginia State’s application?

Did he communicate with federal aviation officials, elected representatives, college administrators, veterans’ organizations, or the National Airmen’s Association?

Did his role grow from his leadership in the American Legion?

Were young men from Wheeling recruited into the program?

Did any Lincoln School graduates train at West Virginia State or continue to Tuskegee?

What was the history of the Colored Boys State organization he founded?

Are President Davis’s original letter and related correspondence preserved in an archive?

These questions remind us why historical preservation matters. A single newspaper clipping can restore a forgotten person to a major story—and reveal how much remains to be discovered.

The best-known names in West Virginia State’s aviation history deserve their honor. But the News-Register shows that others worked beyond the campus to help make the achievement possible.

Dr. Robert Maceo Hamlin was one of them.

He saw a barrier that told Black young men they could not fly.

Then he helped create a way for them to take off.

-T

Historical Terminology Note

This article includes historical terms such as “colored” and “Negro” when quoting original sources or identifying organizations as they were known at the time. These terms reflect the language and racial conditions of their era; their inclusion is not an endorsement of their use today.

In our own narrative, we use Black and African American, as appropriate. We preserve historical wording to document the past faithfully while honoring the dignity, humanity, and experiences of the people whose stories we share.

Sources and Research Notes

Primary source: “Civilian Pilot Training Available to Colored Men,” Wheeling News-Register, September 22, 1939, p. 32. The article includes a photograph of Dr. R. M. Hamlin and excerpts from West Virginia State College President John W. Davis’s letter crediting Hamlin’s cooperation with helping secure aviation instruction for Black students.

Institutional history: Charles T. Ledbetter, “West Virginia State University’s Aviation Program and Its Contribution to the Tuskegee Airmen,” West Virginia State University. This history documents the program’s federal authorization, its principal campus leaders, the first class, and its connection to George Spencer Roberts, Mac Ross, and other Tuskegee Airmen.

Wertz Field: Louis E. Keefer, “Wertz Field,” The West Virginia Encyclopedia. This source describes the airfield, the flight training conducted there, its relationship to West Virginia State, and its closure in 1942.

Rose Agnes Rolls Cousins: “Among the Airmen … A Rose,” West Virginia State University. The university’s account documents Rolls’s admission to the program, flight training, solo cross-country flight, and rejection from military training at Tuskegee because of her sex.

Dr. Hamlin biography: Seán Duffy and Erin Rothenbuehler, “Lesser Known Legends of Wheeling: African American Leaders,” Archiving Wheeling, Ohio County Public Library, February 2021.