(by Renee Sewell-Raysor)
Who is the oldest living African American Olympic medal holder in the U.S.? It’s Herbert Douglas Jr., and he was in Greenbelt recently, meeting with Franklin Park’s Rev. Ray Raysor at GATe-TV to discuss the Douglas Raysor Foundation.

Douglas Jr., an alumnus of the University of Pittsburgh, competed in the long jump in the 1948 Olympics. “There were no Olympics in 1940 and 1944 because of the war,” he explained.

Of all the accolades he has received, as an Olympian and as one of the first African American vice-presidents at Schieffelin & Co., now Moet-Hennessy USA, his greatest hero was his father.

“My dad owned a rental garage in Pittsburgh. Apartment buildings at that time were built with no parking facilities. People needed a place to park their cars and they needed chauffeurs. This was in 1918, you have to remember, cars were for the middle class. They had only been available to the working class from about 1906.”

When the elder Douglas suddenly lost his sight, he thought his days as a business owner were over. He applied for and received a Seeing Eye guide dog in the 1930s when service animals were not widely accepted.

Read more of this story in the June 29 News Review