The outpatient clinic at the new Veterans Administration hospital in Aurora will be named after Lt. Col. John W. Mosley, a Colorado native and pioneering civil rights leader who served with the legendary Tuskegee Airmen, under legislation sponsored by U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, D-Centennial.

“Lt. Col. Mosley embodies the finest our country has to offer,” Crow said in a floor speech, calling the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame member “an inspirational leader in the Aurora community and in the Air Force.”

“Naming the new Aurora clinic after Col. Mosley honors his legacy and will inspire future generations to break barriers,” Crow said. “I can’t think of a better name for my fellow veterans to walk into this new clinic in Aurora, Colorado, than to see the name of Col. John Mosely as they walk in and to remember his service, his sacrifice, his leadership, and the best of what we can be as a country.”

HR 4172, the bill to honor Mosley, who died at 93 in 2015, passed the House of Representatives on a voice vote Monday and heads to the Senate.

The community-based outpatient clinic that could bear his name is scheduled to open next summer.

Mosley broke barriers as the first Black football player at Colorado State University, starting in 1939, when he was one of just nine Black students at the CSU, then called the Agricultural College of Colorado. He later served with the all-Black Tuskegee Airmen during World War II and continued to serve in the Korean and Vietnam wars until retiring from the Air Force in 1970.

Mosley’s https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/tuskegee-airmen

Crow’s bill has been endorsed by the VFW Department of Colorado, the American Legion Department of Colorado and the Disabled American Veterans Department of Colorado and has the support of every member of the state’s congressional delegation.

Residents of the northeast Denver neighborhood that used to be called Stapleton considered calling the neighborhood Mosley, among other choices, but wound up going with Central Park. Nearby, Aurora Public Schools’ Edna and John W. Mosley P-8 school offers accelerated learning models for students.