Black Air Foundaion- Brown University Alumni Association awards George S. Lima

Brown University Alumni Association awards George S. Lima
The John Hope Award for Public Service

The John Hope Award, co-sponsored by the Brown Alumni Association and the Swearer Center for Public Service, is named for the 1894 African-American alumnus who dedicated his life to education and community service. With this award, the BAA honors a graduate whose commitment to public service exemplifies leadership, innovation, and a direct impact on the community. The honoree may be a professional whose career is dedicated to public service or a volunteer devoted to public service or social action.

Special note: From 2003 – 2005, due to the extraordinarily high quality of nominations of very young alumni for this award, the John Hope Award selection committee also recognized a number of these nominees with the Young Alumni Service Award. Their names are included in the list below with the designation "YASA".

(Click on a name for more information on the recipient.)

2008 Recipient: George Lima ’48
one of World War II’s famous Tuskegee Airmen, a lifelong activist and public servant.

John Hope Award for Public Service: George Lima ’48

In April 1945, as a member of the U.S. Army’s 477th Bombardment Group, George Lima was one of 60 black Air Corps officers arrested for trying to enter a white officer’s club at Freeman Field in Indiana – a courageous and potentially dangerous decision for a military officer. But this incident proved to be decisive in the Army’s move to integrate its clubs and was a turning point on the road toward the full integration of the military just three years later. As it turns out, this was only one in a series of courageous actions George Lima would take in a lifetime of commitment to civil rights.

The son of immigrants from Cape Verde, Lima first attended NC A&T State College, and served with the legendary Tuskegee Airmen in World War II. Enrolling at Brown after the war, he chose to study sociology in part to try to understand the segregation and discrimination he had witnessed and experienced. After graduation, despite his military service and Brown degree, the only work he could find was as a shipping clerk. But with characteristic determination, he went on to serve as a union representative and organizer, then as an administrator with the War on Poverty and VISTA in Washington.

Returning to Providence, he served as president of the local NAACP and as a Rhode Island state representative – using both positions to continue his fight for civil rights. And the passage of time has not diminished his drive for change. Just a few years ago, now in his 80s, he founded the Black Air Foundation to create programs empowering minority youth through education and training.