It’s 204 miles from Pensacola to Tuskegee University in Alabama, but the impact of the famed historically Black university reverberates through town. Its graduates have become social workers, nurses, architects and more, bettering our city in countless ways.
But the achievements of Pensacola’s most legendary Tuskegee graduate, Air Force Gen. Daniel “Chappie” James,’ reverberate the loudest and serve as a point of pride for members of the Greater Pensacola Tuskegee Alumni Club.
Tuskegee graduate Ellis Jones, class of 1967, is the former president of the Gen. Daniel “Chappie” James Jr. Museum of Pensacola, located at 1606 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. The museum is the historic schoolhouse where James’ mother, Lillie James, ran a school for Black children.
Jones remembers well his first real introduction to James, while a young student at the former St. Anthony Catholic School.
“At recess, our teachers told us to look into the skies and we’ll see something exciting,” Jones said. “A plane came down soaring, diving, doing rolls and all sorts of entertaining stunts. It was exciting. But I didn’t know until later that it was Chappie James.”