Raynors HCA 2014-11
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 11/6/2014
Colorized Photograph, 15-1/2” x 20”(sight) in a larger matted, simple black frame which is sealed. the image is dramatic, very good, a couple minor scratches in the background. The patriotic image shows Lieutenant Wilmeth Sidat-Singh stepping into the cockpit of his P40. Wilmeth is fully uniformed and intently looking skyward. There is printed identification card behind the glass “Lt. Wilmeth Sidat-Singh, Air Corps US Army 1943. A Man’s Man - What Greater Tribute Can One Man Pay Another? Tuskegee Army Air Field Photograph.” Wilmeth Sidat-Singh (1918-1943) was an African-American basketball and football player who was subject to segregation in college and professional sports in the 1930s. His parents were both African-American. After the death of his father, Elias Webb (a pharmacist), his mother, Pauline, married Samuel Sidat-Singh, a medical student from India who adopted Wilmeth, giving him his family name. Wilmeth showed great talent as an athlete and became a basketball star, leading DeWitt Clinton High School to the New York Public High School Athletic League championship in 1934. He received an offer of a basketball scholarship from Syracuse University and enrolled in 1935. With unofficial bans on black players enacted in both the NBL and NFL, Sidat-Singh played briefly for a professional barnstorming basketball team in Syracuse and then joined the Washington, D.C., police. After U.S. entry into World War II, he applied and was accepted as a member of the Tuskegee Airmen. Sidat-Singh earned his wings in March 1943, only to be killed in training mission when the engine of his airplane failed and he became entangled in his parachute. He drowned May 9, 1943 in Lake Huron. The army issued a recruiting poster focused on Wilmeth service, Office for Emergency Management, Office of War Information News Bureau, 1943 (copy included).
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