Leslie Edwards Jr. (August 9, 1924 – September 23, 2019) was trained as an aircraft technician and became a flight chief with the rank of staff sergeant and a member of the Tuskegee Airmen, the famed group of World War II-era African-American military pilots.

[1] His family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, the year after Edwards was born,[1] settling in the West End.

[2] Edwards had to leave the Harriet Beecher Stowe School in Cincinnati in the tenth grade to support his two sisters and mother.

[3][5] He earned a bachelor's degree in commerce from Salmon P. Chase College in Cincinnati.

[2] He was honored with the Congressional Gold Medal in 2007, and attended the presidential inaugurations of Barack Obama in both 2009 and 2013.