farms. Motivated by Hoover's promises, Moton saw to it that the Colored Advisory Commission never revealed the full extent of the abuses in the Delta, and Moton championed Hoover's candidacy to the African-American population. However, once elected President in 1928, Hoover ignored Robert Moton and the promises he had made to his black constituency. In the following election of 1932, Moton withdrew his support for Hoover and switched to the Democratic Party. Moton was a member of the Gamma Sigma graduate chapter of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, along with George Washington Carver. Moton went on to retire from Tuskegee in 1935 and died at his home Holly Knoll, in Gloucester County, Virginia, in 1940 at the age of 72 where he was buried at the Hampton Institute. Tuskegee Institute named the field where Airmen trained during World War I after Robert Moton, in honor of everything he did for the institute. Legacy and honors The Tuskegee syphilis experiment, one of the most infamous biomedical research studies in U.S. history, began while Moton headed Tuskegee Institute. A clinical study conducted between 1932 and 1972 in Macon County, Alabama, by the U.S. Public Health Service, it became notorious for ethical issues, as it failed to tell participants their diagnosis and did not treat them, even after penicillin was proven in the 1940s to be effective against syphilis. The study followed the natural progression of untreated syphilis in poor, rural black men who thought they were receiving free health care from the U.S. government. Moton endorsed the study and provided institutional resources, including medical personnel. The study was finally shut down in 1972 amid ethical controversy. The victims of the study included numerous men who died of syphilis, 40 wives who contracted the disease, and 19 children born with congenital syphilis. Moton Field, the initial training base for the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II, was named after him. Moton had died the year before the Army commenced formal training of African-American military pilots at Tuskegee Institute. But under his leadership, the school had established a commitment to aeronautical training with facilities, engineering, and technical instructors. These resources were a factor in Tuskegee Institute's participation in the Civilian Pilot Training Program, a nationwide endeavor which eventually led to the training of African-American pilots at Tuskegee. Holly Knoll, his retirement home in Gloucester County, has been known as the Robert R. Moton House and