I went to the Tuskegee Airmen NHS (https://www.nps.gov/tuai/index.htm) over the holiday. It is pretty much in my ancestral backyard, but I had never gone and I am so glad I did – it was a great, clear, and nuanced look at the complicated history of the training program for Black pilots held there. The Tuskegee Airmen became the first US Black military pilots and endured tremendous racism while training and upon return after WWII. There were many stories of heroism and of tragedy. The story that stuck with me was a Black pilot who had to make an emergency landing in a farmer’s field while training. The white farmer accused him of stealing the plane and tried to run him off.

Photo credits:

© Pwsuddes / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0 / https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tuskegee_Airmen_NHS_Hangar_2.jpg

© Ser Amantio di Nicolaos / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0 / https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Quotes,_Tuskegee_Airmen_NHS.jpg

A red-tail P-51 Mustang suspended from the ceiling in a museum.A museum display with the quote "You volunteer to fight for a country that lynched your people. Why?" from an SS officer to an American Black POW, CPT Luther H. Smith, Jr.