Page 76 - Appendix A

gave information and orders and everything that this would be segregated. They
had separate drinking fountains, separate eating facilities, separate community

casual type of activity, it was all separated. And of course, this really struck the
blacks at the base in such a tremendous fashion that it was almost ready to erupt
into rebellion. And the Air Corps at that time realized this, and they replaced the
commander with Colonel Noel Parrish. Colonel Noel Parrish came in, and he
immediately changed everything and said hey this is an integrated base. Everyone
is doing this thing on your own; we work together, eat together, do everything
together. And he was a tremendous influence on the black base at that time. In
fact, because of his influence, one of the highest honors that we have in the
Tuskegee Airmen is the Noel Parish Award which is given out each year to an
outstanding individual. And things like this happen, and we really got rid of that

guy (previous commander) and went back to our integrated base. And he went
out and talked with the people in the local community, the white people, and said
hey this is the way it is…we’re integrating the base…this is their base and we're
coming in and integrating it. So that took care of that. So I don’t know whether
you knew that, but I wanted to get that out, okay go ahead.

Ivan: No, I knew Colonel Parrish brought some changes, but I didn’t know it down to
that level.

Bob: Yeah it was.

Ivan: I thought it was still a segregated base and that he was just fairer to blacks than
the previous commander.

Bob: No, no he changed everything.

Ivan: So you went from an integrated high school to pretty much an all-black unit?

Bob: Oh yeah.

Ivan: How was that for you?

Bob: It was disturbing because mostly, I was seventeen in high school and I was
delivering the black newspapers at the time trying to make extra money for the
family. And you know Amsterdam news, Pittsburgh Courier and so forth, all of
those black newspapers. And I was keeping abreast of what was going on and the