Tuskegee Airmen will be sitting on the stage next to members of Congress when Obama takes office

[babylonsister]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-airmen_24met.ART.State.Edition2.4a24608.html

snip//

On the stage

Tuskegee Airmen healthy enough to make the trip – including four of the six former pilots who live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area – will be sitting on the stage next to members of Congress when Mr. Obama takes the oath of office.

Claude Platte, an 87-year-old former flight instructor and the first black officer at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, never expected to see a black man sworn into the most powerful office in the world.

"When I was coming up, there were things I had an opportunity to do and things I wasn't allowed to do," he said. "Flying was one of them."

While touring Tuskegee in the spring of 1941, Eleanor Roosevelt was introduced to Charles Anderson, head of pilot training.

Mrs. Roosevelt reportedly asked, "Can Negroes really fly airplanes?"

"Certainly we can," Mr. Anderson replied. "As a matter of fact, would you like to take an airplane ride?"

Mr. Anderson took the first lady for an hourlong ride in the back of a Piper J-3 Cub.

Soon after, her husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt, ordered the Air Forces to train black pilots at Tuskegee.

more...

[firedupdem]

1. My son is a junior at Tuskegee...beautiful campus and a beautiful

"spirit" there. Great Article and I can tell January 20th will have me crying all day. I just wish my mom and dad were here to share this with me. Wow...just Wow!

[babylonsister]

3. Isn't this the coolest?! A place of honor they so richly deserve. And

enjoyed this article, too. Eleanor Roosevelt sounded like a no-nonsense kind of gal.
I hope all the Tuskegee students will be encouraged to watch!

[Number23]

7. I have too many friends, family and sorors that went to Tuskeegee

Girl, I will be watching this inauguration from literally the other side of the world. And I will be crying with you.

:toast:

[countingbluecars]

2. Great article.

It is going to be a very emotional day for so many people.

[Captain Hilts]

4. Wonderful!!!! ER knew blacks could fly planes, that's why she went down there.

As the CO of the squadron - a white racist - said, "I get my orders from Gen. Arnold. Gen. Arnold gets his orders from Gen. Marshall, and Gen. Marshall gets his orders from Eleanor Roosevelt, so these boys are gonna fly combat."

They should make an effort to get every one of these guys to the inauguration. If they're infirm, send the military to get them.

Yay!

[Shiver]

6. And family of any that are no longer with us.

This is really cool! :fistbump:

[Captain Hilts]

16. Yes. nt

[Joe Chi Minh]

20. Nice to get the "good oil" on the truth of the matter. The conventional "wisdom"

- I use the term in the loosest sense imaginable - was that black soccer-players lacked the courage for the game! Now, men of West Indian descent - not to speak of indigenous Africans - are somewhat more than well-represented in the professional soccer played here in the UK!

[sarge43]

5. The story goes that the bomber crews loved having the Tuskegee

Airmen as their fighter escort because they didn't screw around or show boat. They did their job and took care of business.

They've more than earned this moment.

:patriot:

[Captain Hilts]

17. Because they'd been held out of combat for years, they were FAR better trained...

when they first experienced combats.

The redtails of their planes became famous.

P-51s, my favorite fighter of the war.

[Joe Chi Minh]

22. There would have been more to it than being far better trained, imo.

I seem to remember reading that the reactions of people of African or part-African descent tend to be quicker, their visual awareness, in fact, their all-round athleticism, greater. Plus there is the greater motivation to prove themselves in a hostile, racist environment.

[sarge43]

23. I think it was the motivation to prove themselves.

They knew the racists and bigots would jump on any mistake no matter how small or commonplace.

[Joe Chi Minh]

24. Yes. It must have played a major part in their record of extraordinary effectiveness.

[Joe Chi Minh]

21. Very moving to read.

[HamdenRice]

28. Generally yes. But there was one mission in which racism caused many Black pilots to go down

I'm currently writing a short story about this so I won't go into details. But many years ago, in the 70s, my parents had a cocktail party and invited one of the Tuskeegee airmen pilots over. After a few drinks, this pilot told me the most harrowing war story I'd ever heard, and to make a long story short, it involved the bomber commander putting the fighter squadron at great risk because he knew the fighters were Black. This pilot said several of the fighter planes crashed as a result, and he himself was terribly wounded when his plane crashed at the base.

[Cha]

8. That's quite a pic of the patriotic Calvin Spann!

:patriot:

<snips from your article>

"We were not allowed to go into the officers' club, period," Mr. McDaniel said. "And we felt that since we were citizens and since we were giving our lives for our country, we should have access to all the privileges of any other officer in the Air Corps."

Defying a direct order, more than 100 officers, including 2nd Lt. McDaniel, were arrested after trying to enter the white officers' club, even though mutiny during a time of war carried a potential death penalty."

[CTyankee]

9. Why in the hell didn't past presidents do this at their Inaugurations?

Who in the goddamned world would have occasion to bicker about that?

It's just about damned time, is all I have to say...

[babylonsister]

11. You are so right. These men will be acknowledged now, and it's about time. nt

[CTyankee]

12. So many are gone, tho! Robin Roberts' dad is one. I get kinda teary when she talks about him

on GMA.

Well, better late than never I guess...

[AtomicKitten]

10. I swear I'm turning into jello already. Beyond verklempt.

I feel so privileged to be witnessing this historic moment.

[babylonsister]

13. Yes, it will be so. I feel privileged, also. nt

[OhioBlue]

14. That is wonderful!!!

I'm so glad they are doing this. It gives me chills to think about those gentlemen and all that they have witnessed and will be witnessing. I truly hope they are all interviewed and there thoughts are recorded in history. We have made great progress as a nation, generation by generation. We have much progress to make. I'm so glad to look forward to an Obama administration. The last 8 years have seemed like a stand still or a roll back of progress. Where did the last 8 years go?

[jenmito]

15. K&R. Thanks for some positive news that reminds people how historic Obama's election is!

:hi:

[Captain Hilts]

18. I'd always read that the idea of the airplane ride was hers. As she was known to be an avid air ...

passenger, it would have been a snub not to do so.

Red Foxx tried to make a movie about this - "Auntie Eleanor."

As I've always read it, she told Anderson, "let's go for a ride," and off they went, MUCH to the dismay of her security detail.

I've never read her quoted as saying "can Negroes fly?" She knew they could, and that was part of the point of her visit.

[Joe Chi Minh]

19. It's very good indeed to hear, though I wish they'd been given similar recognition long before.

Not that the extraordinary heroism of other marginalised categories of people has been exactly speedy in coming.

Women pilots flew many of the aircraft from the factories to the airfields in Britain during WWII - often having never flied the type of plane before. I believe they had neither weapons to defend themselves against enemy planes, nor navigation instruments to guide them. It was all visual.

I believe the outstanding heroism of our merchant seamen on the Arctic convoys to Murmansk has only recently been recognised by our UK government, although the Russians did so long ago, and more recently, the Ghurkas have struggled for fair treatment, never mind recognition.

[angee_is_mad]

25. Finally, a positive inauguration post

that isn't centered around Rev. Warren.

K&R

[Marrah_G]

26. I'm glad they are being given a place of honor. They EARNED it.

I'm glad the chance came within their lifetimes.

[HamdenRice]

27. My father was part of a Tuskeegee Airmen Fighter Group

He was not a pilot. He was part of the ground crews, and in particular, worked in their separate hospital, trying to suppress the constant outbreaks of malaria endemic to the Italian countryside.

That experience completely changed his life. He entered the Army Airforce as little more than a southern peasant; he left believing he could become educated and middle class.

The pilots and officers, contrary to the way it was in much of the army, "fraternized" with the enlisted men a lot, on the basis of their common identity. One officer in particular used to have long talks with him and the other enlisted men who were his friends about what the world would be like after the war.

The stories my father told me were astounding. My favorite story was about the Fighter Group's intelligence officer, who was so light skinned that he looked white. When a pilot was shot down behind enemy lines, the intelligence officer's job was to impersonate an Italian or German civilian, go behind enemy lines, meet up with the partisans or resistance, and bring the pilot back to the air field. That intelligence officer became a prominent African American business man and politician in New York City.

I wish my father had lived to see this election and inauguration.