The Chauncey Spencer collection is an accumulation of personal materials - correspondence, scrapbooks, photographs, sound and video recordings - relating to his lifelong interest in aviation, his career with the military, and the career of his mother, poetess Anne Spencer.
Chauncey E. Spencer was born on November 5, 1906 in Lynchburg, Virginia, the son of Anne Spencer, the poet, and Edward A. Spencer, a businessman. He graduated from Virginia Seminary and College in 1930 with a major in sociology. After a period of government employment, Spencer went to Chicago to attend aviation school. While there, he assisted in organizing a group of other like-minded individuals interested in aviation, the National Airmen's Association of America. As business manager of the organization, Spencer argued for the inclusion of African Americans in the newly formed Civilian Pilot Training Program. Spencer joined the 184th Field Artillery, Illinois National Guard in 1938, and in 1940, he volunteered to enter the Armed Forces. Instead, in October 1941, he was released from the Army in order to serve in the U.S. Air Force. Shortly thereafter the Air Force selected him to serve as a civilian employee with important responsibility for the implementation of presidential executive orders providing for the integration of the armed services. Although he met with much opposition, for his work, Spencer was award the Exceptional Civilian Service Medal in 1948.
After the war and up until his retirement in 1960, Spencer was an Air Force Civilian Personnel Employment Relations Officer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. During the 1950s, based upon allegations brought against him, Spencer was suspended for period of months as a "security risk." Though completely exonerated, Spencer transferred to Norton Air Force Base in California. After leaving the Air Force, Spencer served as police commissioner of San Bernardino, California and deputy administrator of Highland Park, Michigan.
