Rosa Parks, 1913-2005, has died. Most Americans know her story, how she refused to get up and give up her seat on the bus, which she was legally required to do; the Montgomery bus boycott followed, Martin Luther King Jr came into prominence and America was shamed into putting an end to segregation. La Shawn Barbera describes her impact:
Call her “the woman who refused to get up,” but I’m sure Rosa Parks had no idea what her tired feet and frustrating treatment would lead to on December 1, 1955.
What became known as the Civil Rights movement was bound to start sooner or later. It was only a matter of time before blacks would reject all that “back of the bus” and “Whites Only” nonsense. In a country where they were paying taxes, too? Please. I’m surprised the movement didn’t hit America with full force 10-15 years earlier when black men were fighting for their country in WWII.
Prominent among the "black men (who) were fighting for their country in WWII", were the Tuskegee Airmen. Their exploits were instrumental in Truman's decision to integrate the armed forces after World War II and laid the kindling for the civil rights movement that was later ignited by Rosa Parks. On Saturday, the Washington Post reported on some of the surviving members taking a trip to Iraq to support the morale of the troops there, Tuskegee Airmen Suit Up, Head to Iraq:
Lt. Col. Herbert Carter is 86 years old and ready for deployment. More than 60 years after his World War II tour with the pioneering black pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen, Carter's new mission will be shorter, though no less courageous.
Carter is one of seven aging Tuskegee Airmen traveling this weekend to Balad, Iraq _ a city ravaged by roadside bombs and insurgent activity _ to inspire a younger generation of airmen who carry on the traditions of the storied 332nd Fighter Group.
"I don't think it hurts to have someone who can empathize with them and offer them encouragement," he said.
The Tuskegee Airmen and Rosa Parks had more to do with dismantling the state supported structure of racism than many people realize, and they did it by displaying their pride and dignity as human beings in a nation which had not yet come to grips with the evil of treating black Americans as second class citizens.
The Tuskegee Airmen were inducted into the Army Air Corps in World War II at a time when blacks were considered inferior to whites and were strictly segregated. Racism was alive and well, and quite overt. This is from Tuskegee Airmen, Inc.
The Tuskegee Airmen were dedicated, determined young men who enlisted to become America's first black military airmen, at a time when there were many people who thought that black men lacked intelligence, skill, courage and patriotism. They came from every section of the country, with large numbers coming from New York City, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Detroit. Each one possessed a strong personal desire to serve the United States of America at the best of his ability.
Those who possessed the physical and mental qualifications were accepted as aviation cadets to be trained initially as single-engine pilots and later to be either twin-engine pilots, navigators or bombardiers. Most were college graduates or undergraduates. Others demonstrated their academic qualifications through comprehensive entrance examinations.
No standards were lowered for the pilots or any of the others who trained in operations, meteorology, intelligence, engineering, medicine or any of the other officer fields. Enlisted members were trained to be aircraft and engine mechanics, armament specialists, radio repairmen, parachute riggers, control tower operators, policemen, administrative clerks and all of the other skills necessary to fully function as an Army Air Corps flying squadron or ground support unit.
In a fairly typical, modest way, the now retired Airmen describe what they went through, at a time when many people didn't think they had the wherewithal to succeed (WaPo):
But the black retirees said they are thrilled that a group still fights within their 332nd lineage, regardless of skin color.
"I'm proud they're in a unit carrying our name," said Charles McGee, 82, a retired colonel whose 409 combat missions is an Air Force record. "That's very meaningful from the heritage point of view."
The original Tuskegee Airmen were recruited in an Army Air Corps program created to train blacks to fly and maintain combat aircraft during World War II _ though some of the retired Airmen say it was really designed to try to prove that blacks were incapable of flying and fighting.
Even after the first group completed pilot training in March 1942, they were not allowed to fly for more than a year.
"My status as a Negro bordered on second-class citizenship and the military simply reflected the culture of the time," Carter recalled in a recent interview. "If you were a Negro, you were a Negro in either setting."
The most remarkable thing about the Tuskegee Airmen has nothing to do with their color and everything to do with their abilities. In WWII, when bombers were involved in raids on particularly well defended targets, they would get a fighter escort. The Tuskegee Airmen were among the air wings that would fly fighter escort for B-24 bombing missions. When the crew of the B-24's recognized their escort were the Tuskegee Airmen, they always relaxed. The WaPo article makes it obvious why this should have been so:
Eventually, the black airmen flew escort for bombers. They were credited with shooting down more than 100 enemy aircraft and never losing an American bomber under escort to enemy fighters. [Emphasis mine-SW] In all, 992 pilots were trained in Tuskegee from 1940 to 1946. About 450 deployed overseas and 150 lost their lives in training or combat.
Neither Rosa Parks nor the Tuskegee Airmen were given any special breaks because they were black; in fact, they had significant impediments placed in their path. The Airmen knew that just being good was not enough; they knew they had to excel in order to break through the wall of (low) expectations that were set for them. Once they were in the air doing their jobs, if they didn't measure up they, or the people who depended on them, would be dead.
One of the airmen whose life was saved by the Tuskegee Airmen was a tail gunner who flew 51 missions, among them some of the worst bombing runs of WWII (Ploesti Oil refineries, among others) in which the American bombing crews suffered horrendous casualties. After the war, this particular airman married and raised a family and told stories about the black fighter pilots whose presence meant they would all live to fly another day. That airman was my father.
In a very real way, I owe a personal debt of gratitude to the Tuskegee Airmen.
The remarkable thing about Rosa Parks and the Tuskegee Airmen was their ability to survive and thrive in situations of such intense injustice and animosity. They never bought into the idea that they couldn't be equal to the white majority. At least in the case of the Airmen, they had to be better than the white pilots if they wanted to fly escort, and they were. The record shows it.
How is it that these men were able to succeed at such an inhospitable time and yet today, after a generation of affirmative action, we have such a substantial population of black Americans who do not seem able to fully take part in the American experiment? The answers are complex and some of the questions are only now starting to be asked. I would suggest that issues of self-esteem enter into the equation but in ways which will probably prove to be surprising to those whose understanding of the concept derives from pop psychology and the LSM/educational system's misunderstanding and misapplication of the roots and supports of self-esteem. I will return to this in a future post.
For now, allow Ted Johnson, one of the youngest of the surviving Airmen, to have the last word:
"I think everything should be done to pass their story to future generation of Americans," said Ted Johnson, 80, who graduated from the Advanced Flight School in 1945 and is considered one of the youngest Tuskegee Airmen.
"It was the Tuskegee Airmen who made America come to its senses," he said, "that individuals should be judged on their accomplishments, rather than their ethnicity and color."
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