Page 4 - Aerotech News and Review, June 25, 2021

Juneteenth remembrance of 1st Black air warriors

by Larry Grooms and facing discrimination in every obey a directive by President Franklin
special to Aerotech News part of daily life, volunteer to sacrifice D. Roosevelt, deselected institutions
his life for his country? in more racially integrated areas and
LOS ANGELES, Calif.—On the One answer to that question was recommend a university in the Deep
first national holiday commemorating cited from the book, Red Tail Cap- South. It was, some panelists ob-
the long wait between slavery’s offi- tured, Red Tail Free: Memoirs of A served, an early example of industry
cial abolition and freedom’s arrival on Tuskegee Airman and P.O.W. The integration programs built on an ex-
a date remembered as Juneteenth, the memoirs of African-American flier pectation of failure for Black appli-
Los Angeles–Las Vegas Chapter of Alexander Jefferson detail how he cants.
the American Institute of Aeronautics bailed out over France in 1944 when Panelist Shelby Jacobs, who did
and Astronautics related the legacy his P-51 Mustang fighter was shot groundbreaking work in optics for
of America’s Tuskegee Airman who down while escorting bombers. Cap- the Space Program, said his suc-
fought racism at home and Hitler’s tured, he spent nine months in Luft- cesses came in part because he rec-
Luftwaffe over Europe in World War waffe Stalags where his Nazi interro- ognized that some of his assignments
II. gators demanded to know: Why would were based on an expectation that he
By the end of the war on May 8, you fight for a country that hates you? wouldn’t succeed. The theme was
1945, the war record of 21,000 Tuske- Jefferson’s answer was short and echoed by another panelist who no-
gee program pilots, air crewmen and powerful: “Because it’s MY Country.” ticed that his starting position’s pri-
ground support personnel had set the Courtesy photograph Jefferson, a Detroit native who was mary purpose seemed to be corporate
stage for President Harry S. Truman’s Pilots of a U.S. Army Air Forces fighter squadron, credited with shooting one of 32 Tuskegee Airmen from the window-dressing for management
July 1948 Executive Order 9981, end- down 8 of the 28 German planes destroyed in dog-fights over the new Allied 332nd Fighter Group to become pris- integration. Panelists also remarked
ing racial segregation in the armed beachheads south of Rome, on Jan. 27, talk over the day’s exploits at a U.S. oners of war, explained in his mem- that an opposite practice was used in
services, and reassignment to all inte- base in the Mediterranean theater. Members of this squadron, veterans of oirs that his response to the Nazi in- NASA’s early Space Program, where
grated units the following year. the North African and Sicilian campaigns, were formerly classmates at the terrogators was based on the vision of Black woman mathematicians made
Keynote speaker and panelist for Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. America’s future as seen through the essential contributions despite work-
the two-part Zoom conference on Hawks is also a member of the Sam German forces on the Allied beach- eyes of a patriot who fights to protect ing under discrimination in isolation
June 19, was Harvey Hawks, docent Bruce Chapter of Tuskegee Airmen, head at Anzio, Italy. Although Black and fulfill the promise of American and obscurity. Their struggle in the
at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to sharing freedom. two decades after the Red Tails saga
Wash. Knowledge from his 25 years Americans fought in every American Panelists agreed Tuskegee Univer- was made widely known in the movie,
as a museum docent stimulated lively stories of the original Airmen and in- War, Sam Bruce was among the first sity, a segregated institution in Ala- “Hidden Figures.”
At the dawn of Black history in avi-
and thought-provoking discussion spiring future generations of African to fight in the sky, and to give his life bama, was selected in early 1941 as ation, Tuskegee’s first class in March
by members of an AIAA panel, with American aerospace professionals. to his country. an unlikely location for an experiment 1942 had 13 cadets — five graduated.
topics ranging from historical truths, Hawks explained that black fighter From that and other examples, the to determine whether Black trainees
myths and misunderstandings to over- pilot Sam Bruce, honored in the mu- panel was drawn into discussion of a would qualify to become combat pi- Contrary to public perception, cadets
came from across the nation. Between
looked legendary exploits by Tuskeg- seum’s Personal Courage Wing, died pivotal question: Why would a young lots and aircrews. The historical view 1941 and 1946, Tuskegee trained just
ee Airmen recognized by their aircraft Jan, 27, 1944, while flying aircover American Black man living in a time is that the War Department, opposed
battle colors: The Red Tails. for American troops under fire by of overwhelming racial segregation, to even the concept but duty-bound to See JUNETEENTH, Page 5

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