‘A True American Hero’: 110-Year-Old UU the Oldest Known Living U.S. Military Veteran and Tuskegee Airman

At 110 years of age, James Clayton Flowers is the oldest known living Tuskegee Airman, the historic group of African Americans who served in the Army Air Corps during World War II as air crew, ground crew, and operations support at a time when the U.S. military remained segregated, and who became renowned for their exceptional service and skill. Flowers is also the oldest known living U.S. military veteran and currently the fifth-oldest living man in the US, according to the Gerontology Research Group.

Flowers is “a true American hero” and “a living bridge to a pivotal era in American history,” said Leon G. Butler, national president of Tuskegee Airmen, Inc., which works to preserve the legacy of the original Tuskegee Airmen and to engage with youth to inspire future careers in aviation, aerospace, and STEM. His “life reflects a profound intersection of faith, resilience, and American history.”

Yet the thing that Flowers, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Las Cruces, New Mexico, for more than forty years, most wants people to know is “that I had a good family and that I enjoyed living,” he said in a recent phone interview with UU World. “They’re wonderful. I’m proud of them.”

He and his wife, Evelyn Church Flowers, who died in 2008 at age 88, had four children, and the family has grown to include six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, according to his daughter, Kathi Bayne, who is a member of the Mission Peak UU Congregation in Fremont, California. Bayne is a physician, as is her husband, Omar Bayne, and their three children. Among Flowers’ other three grandchildren, one is a physician, one a musician, and one a massage therapist.

Flowers and his wife were both public school teachers on the lower east side of Manhattan and raised their children as UUs in the Community Church of New York before retiring and moving to New Mexico in 1984. “I enjoyed the students,” said Flowers, who also taught religious education (RE).

“He says, ‘People always want to talk to me about being a Tuskegee Airman, but I’m most proud of being a teacher and that I taught RE,’” says Rev. Ali K.C. Bell, minister at the Las Cruces congregation. “He leans into the heroic status of teacher and guide, and not the heroic status of fighter pilot or the ‘first of’ this thing.”

“I think he personally values being a teacher more than when people find out about his military background,” confirmed his son, James Clayton Flowers, Jr., who lives in New Jersey.

Yet the accolades for Flowers’ military service continue to pour in. “Mr. Flowers did more than serve his country; he challenged it to live up to its highest ideals,” Butler said. “His life remains a testament to the fact that the fight for dignity and the fight for democracy are one and the same.”

On his 110th birthday, on December 25, 2025, he was honored for the third year in a row with a drive-by parade past his home, which was organized by the Doña Ana Branch of the NAACP. The parade included members of the Las Cruces Police Department, the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Department, and the Las Cruces Fire Department.

And on March 20, 2026, he was awarded the New Mexico Medal of Merit from the New Mexico Army Air National Guard for “exceptionally meritorious service for his lifelong commitment to service, sacrifice, and dedication to the continued success of our great nation. His distinct service is in the keeping with the highest traditions of service and reflects great credit upon himself, the United States military, and the Great State of New Mexico.”

The Tuskegee Experience

Flowers was born on Christmas Day 1915 in rural Surry County, Virginia. He learned the bricklaying trade from his father before joining the military in 1942, where he was tapped to become an officer. He completed Officer Candidate School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant, according to Butler, and entered pilot training but did not complete the flight program.

“Recognizing his exceptional academic record, Army leadership appointed him an Academic Instructor specializing in Aerodynamics and Mechanics—a role that became his primary assignment for most of his military service,” Butler said.

“Because I was good in math, I guess, and intelligent, I became an S2 officer,” an intelligence and security officer responsible for providing intelligence, threat analysis, and security, Flowers told UU World.

Flowers served at several key domestic military bases during the war, according to Butler, including Godman Field, Kentucky, and Freeman Field, Indiana, with the 477th Bombardment Group, which became famous for fighting the intense racism it experienced within the military. The military wasn’t desegregated until 1948, after an executive order signed by President Harry S. Truman. Flowers left as a first lieutenant after five years of service.

Although no one knows with 100-percent certainty the identities of all the Tuskegee Airmen—the term is not a military term but was created by the original airmen who took part in the Tuskegee Experience—it is accurate to state that Flowers is the oldest known living member of the Tuskegee Airmen, according to Earnestine Lavergne, chairperson of the Harry Sheppard Research Committee, which coordinates the identification and preservation of significant materials and information on the Tuskegee Airmen.

“The legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen lies not merely in their mastery of the skies, but in their triumph over the systemic barriers of their era. Mr. James Clayton Flowers represents the quiet, steadfast courage that defined this vanguard,” said Butler. “By serving as a premier instructor in Aerodynamics and Mechanics, he proved that the ‘Tuskegee Experience’ was built on a foundation of intellectual excellence and technical mastery.”

Still, “I didn’t want to be in the army,” Flowers told UU World. “My family was sort of antiwar, so I was sort of rolling with the punches.”

“I knew very little about his army experience; he just didn’t talk about it,” said his daughter. “He calls himself a pacifist, as his mom was. He used to say, ‘I don’t know why people want to thank you for killing people,’” although, as far as Bayne knows, her father never served in a combat position.

A Tuskegee Airman Embraces Unitarian Universalism

After the war ended, Flowers moved to New York City. There, he joined the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), where he met his wife, a Michigan native whom he married in 1951. He also was involved with the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), where he became acquainted with Rev. John Hayne Holmes, the longtime Unitarian minister at the Community Church of New York (CCNY) who helped found the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

“John Haynes Holmes used to have a lecture on Friday afternoon. I was laying bricks for a living” and afterwards, would go listen, Flowers said. He and his wife wanted their daughter Kathi to enroll in the preschool at CCNY, “so then Evelyn and my family all ended up being a UU. I’m not an extremely religious person, but they were thoughtful people, and I enjoyed them.”

What about UU values drew him to the faith? “They were not as prejudiced and were all thoughtful people,” Flowers said. “John Haynes Holmes was against war. He lectured against war during WWI, isn’t that something?”

Flowers taught RE at the UU congregation in Las Cruces and also served several times as its representative to the General Assembly, the annual meeting of the Unitarian Universalist Association, said his daughter. He and his wife were also “church grandparents” for children in the congregation who didn’t have living or nearby grandparents, including to the two now-adult children of Susan Bagby, another longtime member of the congregation. “There’s not enough love in the world like his,” Bagby said. “He’s just the loveliest person, and strong.”

“Whenever someone checks on him, he asks, ‘How are the kids doing?’” said Bell, minister of the Las Cruces congregation, “That commitment, that steadfastness—we can all learn something from that.”

Bell, who visits Flowers regularly, added, “He’s still engaged and learning, and he’s still appreciative of people.” Indeed, during the UU World interview, Flowers made a point of thanking his caretaker, Lidia Macias, who helped facilitate the interview.

“He asked me, the first time I met him, ‘What do you think about time? Does this time actually exist? Or do we exist in a space where we believe in a specific time, but do you think it’s more continuous than we believe?’ And I said, ‘Man, I just came to visit you!’” recalled Bell, with a laugh. “He is still asking the big questions.”

Flowers also raised deep issues during his interview. “When I was young, the idea of eternity bugged me, then space bugged me,” he said. “I don’t know, the beginning or the ending or what, I just don’t know.” Does anyone know? “Of course they don’t,” he responded, “but I’m so stubborn I let it bug me.”

He continued, “I don’t know what the end result is going to be when I die. One lady friend of mine said my wife is up there waiting for me.” His children and others describe his marriage as a very good one. “Oh, yes, she was a wonderful person,” he said of his wife.

Asked what he regards as the biggest problem facing the world today, Flowers responded, “It’s beyond my mind, I guess. Racism is one of the things,” adding that Unitarian Universalism “is a little better” on that front.

What gives him hope for the world? “I don’t know,” he answered. “I don’t know, it’s beyond my comprehension.”

How does his daughter describe his personality? “He’s stubborn as a rock, that’s the first thing,” she said. “I think he lives so long because he’s too stubborn not to.” However, she added, “He’s a gentle person, a kindhearted person. I’m sure that a big part of what sustains him is that he feels loved and appreciated, and there’s some reason to be there, always something he’s looking forward to,” including that in December, just before he turned 110, he met his newest great-grandchild. “So, there are things still important to him,” she said.

Bell noted that a nephew of Flowers drove hundreds of miles to help celebrate his 110th birthday.

“That’s the kind of light he inspires in people,” Bell said. “It’s hard to be around him and not feel like there’s a purpose for what he’s doing, and it’s easy to remember why we are connected as humans.”