FROM THE DESK OF THE HISTORIAN

First Black US Air Force Surgeon Dr. Vance H. Marchbanks Jr. was the man responsible for the health of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American to become a U.S. Air Force flight surgeon, and a key figure in NASA’s Mercury space program. Yet, when he started college, he couldn't live in the dorms, eat with white classmates, or find a restaurant that would serve him. To survive, he ate meals in a train station where he regularly found cockroaches in his soup. Decades later, when the military tried to ban Black pilots using junk science, Marchbanks proved them wrong using his own blood and his own friends. Vance Marchbanks was a living bridge between the segregated fields of Arizona and the pioneering frontiers of space. He wasn't just a doctor; for decades, he was the only Black doctor in the room.

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When the President of France visited the United States in April 1960, he asked the FBI to help him find a man.

The man he was looking for was an American citizen — sixty-four years old, the holder of fifteen French military decorations and, six months earlier, the recipient of the Légion d’honneur, France’s highest honor, pinned to his chest by the President himself. He had publicly called him un véritable héros français. A true French hero.

The FBI located the man within a few days.

He was operating an elevator at Rockefeller Center in New York City.

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