PHOENIX — During Black History Month, ABC15 continues to highlight and celebrate important civil rights leaders in our community.
Lincoln Ragsdale was one of them. He led the charge for change across Arizona. And his son says there’s now a push to name a new terminal after him at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.
Lincoln Ragsdale Jr.’s dad was a Tuskegee airman who helped integrate Luke Air Force Base, serving as one of their first Black pilots to ever be stationed there.
“He would say that he had a chance to prove that Black people could fly,” he said.
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But his ability to shatter racial barriers was just getting started. Alongside other icons, Ragsdale fought to desegregate schools in Phoenix. He also moved his family into an all-white neighborhood.
“People wrote negative things on the house and he left it there to say, let the people know that I’m here,” Ragsdale Jr. said.
That outspokenness led him to become a successful entrepreneur, giving everyone a fair chance to make a solid living.
“He helped get the first Black hired at Valley National Bank and throughout the community,” he said.
At Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, there’s an executive terminal that now serves as a Phoenix Police substation. It is named after Ragsdale. But in the near future, the building will be destroyed as part of a massive airport expansion project. In the process, a new terminal will be built. Phoenix City Councilman Kevin Robinson says he’s advocating for that new terminal to be named after Ragsdale.
“He did a lot of things that people didn’t expect from African Americans at that time,” Robinson said.
There is still a lengthy process that would need to take place before a name for the new terminal is officially decided.
If it is named after Ragsdale, all three terminals at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport would be named after prominent Arizona military pilots. The other two are named after John McCain and Barry Goldwater.
