Obits in Brief

Warren Kimbro

Warren Kimbro, who died on 3 February 2009 aged 74, was a member of the Black Panther Party in New Haven, Connecticut who served time in jail for murder and later worked rehabilitating ex-convicts.

In May 1969, together with two other Panthers, Lonnie McLucas and George W Sams Jnr, drove another Panther, Alex Rackley, who they suspected of being a police informer, to the marshes near Middlefield, Connecticut. There Kimbro and McLucas shot him. Sams and Kimbro both turned state's evidence in order to have the charges reduced to second degree murder. They received life sentences but were released after four years, Kimbro (pictured above) having spent his time as a model inmate, starting a newspaper with the motto, "don't count time, make time count".

After his release, Kimbro spent more than 20 years as CEO and president of Project MORE, a non-profit agency assisting ex-convicts to re-enter society.

Walter Palmer

Walter Palmer, one of the members of a celebrated Second World War group of black fighter pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen, died on 28 March 2009 aged 87. Palmer flew on 158 missions over Italy and Germany.

The Tuskegee 99th Fighter Group was formed in 1941 and trained in Tuskegee, Alabama. Palmer was 21 when he became an airman, in June 1943.

An eye injury in a car crash ended Palmer's military career. In 2007, he was among around 300 Tuskegee Airmen who received the Congressional Gold Medal from President Bush.