Tuskegee Airman Alex Boudreaux passes away at age 90

Tuskegee Airman Alex Boudreaux Dies at 90
Alex Boudreaux, a member of the storied Tuskegee Airmen, the black Army pilots who fought both Nazi Germany and discrimination in the United States, has died at the age of 90.

Boudreaux was one of the surviving Tuskegee Airmen who visited the White House in 2007 and received the Congressional Gold Medal in a nod to the unit's long-unrecognized service during World War II. He is also thought to be the country's first black civilian air-traffic controller.

Members of his family told The Columbus Dispatch that Boudreaux died in his sleep Sunday in Columbus, Ohio. "Because of the road he traveled ... a lot of African-American leaders' roads were shorter," Boudreaux's granddaughter, Anika Boudreaux, told the Dispatch. "It's an honor to be related to him. I feel like royalty."

Boudreaux was part of a program to become a military pilot in 1943 when the Tuskegee program was shut down, and he continued his training in air-traffic control instead. He was born in Lake Charles, La., in 1920 and is survived by his daughter, four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, according to the Dispatch.