A Tuskegee Airman’s Legacy of Generational Wealth—and His Granddaughter’s Mission to Expand It

Julia Lashay Israel bought her first home at 19, never considering it a remarkable achievement.Only decades later did she begin tracing that sense of possibility to a VA mortgage her grandfather, one of the original Tuskegee Airmen, secured after World War II."We never talked about the house. We always talked about the Tuskegee Airmen," Israel tells Realtor.com®.Her family's experience stands apart from that of many Black Americans. Just 44.4% of Black households owned their homes in the third quarter of 2026, compared with 75.1% of non-Hispanic white households, according to Realtor.com research.Israel, now a real estate broker and educator, has spent years teaching agents about the discriminatory housing policies that helped create that divide—and how their own practices can perpetuate it.Ahead of Veterans Day, she shared her grandfather's story at the National Association of Realtors® NXT conference in New Orleans, illustrating what access to homeownership could make possible for generations of a family.The opportunity so many Black veterans were deniedIsrael's grandfather Sgt. Morrissey Whitley was just 20 when he entered the military aviation training program in Tuskegee, AL, ...