Our History is American History - The Tuskegee Airmen

This past week, I saw articles online stating that Arlington National Cemetery has deleted information on it's website that references Black, Hispanic, and women veterans in order to comply with DEI Executive Orders. One of those servicemembers whose biography was part of the deletion is Vietnam Army Medic Lawrence Joel. Joel received the Silver Star and the Medal of Honor for his heroism in a that occurred on November 8, 1965. He was the first medic to earn the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War and the first living black American to receive this medal since the Spanish–American War in 1898. So why am I mentioning him? Well, Lawrence Joel was born and raised in Winston-Salem, NC, my hometown. In 1986, construction of a new coliseum began and the city gave it the name, the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum (most of us from Winston just call it, "Lawrence Joel"). Anyhoo, for the African American community this was significant and it gave us a great sense of pride. It's history that cannot be erased... should not be erased b/c it happened. Just like the Tuskegee Airman, Joel's heroics are history. They served a country that now does not want to honor them. Very sad! 

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps (AAC), a precursor of the U.S. Air Force. Trained at the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama, these young men flew more than 15,000 individual sorties in Europe and North Africa during World War II. Their impressive performance earned them more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, and helped encourage the eventual integration of the U.S. armed forces.

Before World War II, leaders of the Army Air Corps (predecessor to the modern-day Air Force) barred African Americans from serving in uniform. Facing mounting public pressure in the years before the war, the U.S. government ordered the removal of some restrictions against Black aviators, first by opening civilian training programs in 1939, and then by accepting Black pilots into racially segregated units of the Army Air Corps in 1941. A new air base at Tuskegee, Alabama, became the center for the training program of Black air personnel. First with the 99th Fighter Squadron and later with the 332nd Fighter Group, African Americans contributed to the war effort, serving in the Mediterranean combat theater, flying from bases in North Africa and Italy while supporting operations against German forces. Later, the USAAF created the 477th Bombardment Group of African American B-25 Mitchell crews, which did not see combat.

The Tuskegee Airmen received further training in French Morocco before their first mission, on June 2, 1943, a strafing attack on Pantelleria Island, an Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea. Later that year, the army activated three more squadrons that, joined in 1944 by the 99th, constituted the 332nd Fighter Group. It fought in the European theatre and was noted as one of the Army Air Forces’ most successful and most-decorated escort groups. Altogether, 992 pilots graduated from the Tuskegee Air Field courses, and they flew 1,578 missions and 15,533 sorties, destroyed 261 enemy aircraft, and won more than 850 medals.

The Tuskegee Airmen’s fight for equality involved more than their skills in the air. It required coordinated, collective actions of civil disobedience in which 162 officers risked their careers and their lives to stand up against systemic racism in the US Army Air Forces (AAF). During World War II, black Americans in many U.S. states were still subject to the Jim Crow laws and the American military was racially segregated, as was much of the federal government. The Tuskegee Airmen were subjected to discrimination, both within and outside of the army.

The story of the Tuskegee Airmen has been captured in film, documentaries and in artistic expression via paintings and murals. Popular movies included The Tuskegee Airmen (1995), a film starring Laurence Fishburne, Andre Braugher, Cuba Gooding, Jr, and John Lithgow was produced and aired by HBO and Red Tails, a film about the Tuskegee Airmen produced by Lucasfilm and released in January 2012. The Legend of the Red Tails, by artist Ray Simon is displayed in the Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum.