Later Life
Sport moved to Massachusetts, where he worked in the state courts as an affirmative action officer, helping to ensure equal access for African-Americans. He also served on the boards of such notable organizations as the NAACP, the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society. His son-in-law would later recount, "I think the experience of being with the Tuskegee Airmen prepared him to be a leader."
Sport retired and moved to Conyers, Georgia in 1988, but that didn't stop him from helping others. He worked with an Atlanta-area charity, the Angels of Mercy, which provided food and support to homeless persons, for many years. In 2007, Sport, along with the other Tuskegee Airmen, would receive the Congressional Gold Medal for their service.
Vernon Sport died in Conyers, Georgia on September 8, 2008, of complications from Alzheimer's Disease. He was survived by his wife, three sisters and four children.
Read more about this topic: Vernon Sport
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“You have too much of a life yet before you, and have shown too much of promise as an officer, for your future to be lightly surrendered.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“The life of a good man will hardly improve us more than the life of a freebooter, for the inevitable laws appear as plainly in the infringement as in the observance, and our lives are sustained by a nearly equal expense of virtue of some kind. The decaying tree, while yet it lives, demands sun, wind, and rain no less than the green one. It secretes sap and performs the functions of health. If we choose, we may study the alburnum only. The gnarled stump has as tender a bud as the sapling.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)