Membership Directory

(1926-1995) Born in Blackjack, Oklahoma, Lincoln Ragsdale Senior earned his pilot wings in 1945 and was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army Air Corps. As a Tuskegee Airman, he was assigned to Luke AFB, Arizona and honorably discharged as a WWII veteran in 1946. Although Phoenix was a segregated city, Lincoln stayed and in 1948, he co-founded the Ragsdale Mortuary with his brother Hartwell.  For the next 46 years, Lincoln Ragsdale Senior was a civil rights trailblazer:  he helped de-segregate the Encanto District, Phoenix; in the 1950s he organized rallies and marches to advocate for the inclusion of black workers in banks and stores; in the 1960s, he led the Maricopa County NAACP in eliminating workplace discrimination against skilled black workers; and he founded five additional businesses and opened employment doors for veterans, Hispanics, and Native Americans.