Robert P. Madison is the face of the Greatest Generation: child of the Great Depression, decorated World War II veteran, pioneering entrepreneur, pillar of his community, civic leader. Or, rather, he should be. In that narrative of the men who defended democracy overseas and returned home to create the most powerful nation on earth, African-Americans like Bob Madison—a great-grandson of slaves who fought and strived to create the first black architecture firm in Ohio and only the 10th in the United States—are inconvenient reminders that bigotry and race violence didn’t end with the defeat of Hitler’s Germany.

“Back then segregation was rampant. You didn’t know what you were going to do,” Madison tells RECORD. Now a spry 95 (and a half, he’s quick to add), Madison was in New York on February 26, with filmmaker Derek E. Morton, for a screening of Morton’s documentary Deeds Not Words: Conversations with Robert P. Madison. The hour-long film tracks Madison’s life—growing up in Cleveland, Selma, and Washington D.C.; serving in the 92nd Battalion Buffalo Soldiers regiment in the war; opening his architectural practice in Cleveland in 1954—but given the scope of his experience it’s possible to imagine a three-hour version. He was once engaged to Coretta Scott, before her marriage to Martin Luther King. And like King, he battled segregation—professionally, personally, culturally—by building a diverse firm, sitting on institutional boards, and helping elect black politicians. “He’s living history,” Morton says.