Maxwell Honemond was born in 1919 in Poolesville, Maryland where attended segregated public schools, including Rockville Colored High School. He was one of 11 children born to Percival James Honemond and Sara Copeland. Maxwell was the grandson of formerly enslaved grandparents. Maxwell trained in a late 1930s flight school at Delaware State College (Dover’s Civilian Pilot Training Program) that was being made available to Black civilians for the first time in American history.
In September of 1941, Maxwell was drafted into the US Army, thus interrupting his senior year at Delaware State College. After completing basic training at Fort Bragg and attending Officer Candidate School at Fort Sill, he volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Corps Advanced Flying School in Tuskegee, Alabama, and graduated as a 2nd Lt. in December 1943. Maxwell Honemond was one of roughly one thousand (1,000) Tuskegee Airmen, the nation’s first Black pilots trained for war, and more than 350 Black American pilots deployed overseas. During World War II he served as an observation pilot who spotted for the Allies' ground artillery, watching where colossal rounds hit enemy positions to call back direction adjustments. After the war, Maxwell used the G.I bill to complete a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Education at Delaware State College and a Master of Education at New York University. He also completed 30 hours of doctoral coursework at the University of California at Berkeley.
Maxwell Honemond was a Delaware State College Class of '47 graduate, and a '47 initiate of the Beta Sigma (ΒΣ) Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. Maxwell Honemond was a successful educator and administrator in the District of Columbia Public Schools. He was recruited by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare as a program director in the Office of Civil Rights, Desegregation of Schools Division. He was involved in desegregating the schools in Boston, MA.
Learn More: What's the 'best-kept secret' in aviation? Delaware State, how it produces pilots of color
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