Dr. Richard H. Harris, Jr.

Dr. Richard H. Harris Jr. was born on August 22, 1918, in Montgomery, Alabama, to Richard Henry Harris Sr. and Evelyn Jones Harris. He played a crucial role in coordinating the transportation system used by activists during the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott. Harris owned and operated Dean Drug Store, which was Montgomery's oldest Black-owned drug store. In 1961, his house sheltered a group of Freedom Riders who were attacked in town.

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Richard Harris attended Alabama State College Laboratory High School in Montgomery and graduated from Tuskegee Military Academy for Boys and Williston Academy for Boys in East Hampton, Massachusetts. He then enrolled at Fisk University, where he graduated with a degree in mathematics in 1941. When the United States entered World War II, Harris joined the Tuskegee Airmen Pilot Training Program in 1942. He became a pilot with the 99th Fighter Squadron of the 332nd Fighter Group and was one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen. While in Charleston, South Carolina, Harris met Vera McGill, and they married in 1945. After the war, he returned to Montgomery with his young family and worked at Dean Drug Store, which his mother, Evelyn Jones Harris, owned. Estab-