COLEMAN CONLEY (1920-1946) AVIATOR

Sgt. Conley was a member of the very first class of Tuskegee Airmen. Coleman Conley was the son of Casey Conley, grandson of Thomas Conley, and great-grandson of James Conley, one of the Founders of the Conley Family.

At 18, Coleman, a driven, ambitious self-starter, set off for Tuskegee University to become a Tuskegee Airman in the 385th Air Force Corp, Buffalo Unit. His Enlistment Date was August 7, 1941. That first class of U.S. Army Air Corps cadets graduated from Tuskegee Army Air Field on March 7, 1942; the class began with only 13 cadets. He would later send for his brother Booker, and cousin Monroe. Coleman died in service to America during training exercises May 19 1946, and his brother Booker would take his place flying combat missions in the Italian war theater in the closing months of World War II.

BOOKER CONLEY (1923-2019)AVIATOR, ARCHITECT, AND ENERGY SYSTEMS DESIGNER

Booker T. Conley followed his brother Coleman in military service. Booker Conley greatly admired his older brother, Coleman, and would follow him to Tuskegee University, where Coleman had enrolled in the very first class of Tuskegee Airmen.

In his early days at Tuskegee’s air program, Booker Conley extended his family’s century-long tradition in carpentry by studying architecture at Tuskegee University in the architecture school created by Robert Robinson Taylor. Booker drafted the architectural plans to build the airplane hangars that housed Tuskegee’s famous “Red Tail” fighter planes.

When his older brother died tragically in a combat training exercise, Booker took his place and joined the civil pilot training program at the Tuskegee Institute in 1940. Upon graduating from the Army’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, he went on to serve with the 92nd “Buffalo Soldiers” infantry division in Italy during World War II, flying P-51 Mustang fighter planes. The Buffalo Soldiers Division was the only Black infantry division that participated in WWII combat, serving in Italy from 1944 to the war’s end.

Conley returned to Tuskegee after World War II, and settled near the Tuskegee University campus with his wife, Dorothy, where they raised their four children. He became head of buildings and grounds for his alma mater, where he enjoyed a 50-year long career.

A civic leader, he advanced the formation of a public power utility to improve the utility services in his adopted hometown. Along with lawyer Edward Reid, and William C. Allen, Booker led the incorporation of a public corporation responsible for utility services. These three local citizens had undersigned the Certification of Incorporation presented to the Tuskegee City Council. It sought to incorporate a public utility to operate an electric system, a water works system, and a sewage system. The certificate called for, among other issues, that an electrical system be ran in perpetuity by acquiring, operating, maintaining, improving, and extending an electric system in the City of Tuskegee, and in the territory surrounding the city.