Arlington National Cemetery

To have traveled and been a part of history, shows the heart of a great man that endured and pushed past reservations put before him. 

James A. Hurd, 82, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who had been both a "buffalo soldier" and a "Tuskegee airman" and who also was a retired Howard University administrator, died May 4 at a hospital in Sarasota, Fla., after a stroke. He lived in Sarasota.

He served as auxiliary enterprises director of Howard University from 1963 to 1983. In that post, he supervised the business operations of such university organizations as the cafeteria, bookstore and library.

Col. Hurd, a former Silver Spring resident who lived in the Washington area from 1960 to 1995, was born in Oklahoma. A graduate of the Tuskegee Institute, he received a master's degree in education psychology from Howard.

He joined the Army in 1939 and became one of the elite black Army Air Forces officers chosen for flight training at Tuskegee, Ala., during World War II. Col. Hurd earned his wings and spent the bulk of his career as an Air Force pilot, including service in Korea during the Korean War. He was stationed in Japan when he retired from active duty in 1963.

JAMES ALLEN HURD

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