Category | Arts & Living

Civil Rights, WWII enthusiasts to delight in new exhibit

Published on November 17, 2009 by Berlin Sylvestre

Sixty-eight years ago, in a nation that was still basking in the reprehensible hatred of its black citizens, still reveling in the legislated civil inferiority of people with darker skin, still breeding a seemingly insurmountable antipathy for the recognition of non-whites as equal human beings, there was a war going on against bigotry and all its brethren.

Picture it:  Alabama’s Tuskegee Army Airfield, July 1941. In the midst of WWII, on a military base in a small Southern town, an experiment was underway. Designed to test the questionable intelligence, skill, courage and patriotism of black men with hopes of joining the U.S. military, a strict training regimen began to ascertain whether their brains were up to task. There were no lowered entrance standards and no reduced exit requirements- their schools of operations, meteorology, intelligence, engineering and medicine were every bit as daunting to these men as those of their white counterparts.

It is with immense pride that KSU welcomes these honorable pioneers in their opening exhibit “The Tuskegee Airmen: The Segregated Skies of World War II.” The event will take place Nov. 17 at 12:30 p.m. in the lofty KSU Center on Busbee Parkway. Open to the public, admission to this learning experience is free.

The initial Tuskegee Army Airfield class of 13 graduated in 1942, pinning the first black men in U.S. history with silver pilot wings. By 1946, just five years after the experiment began, Tuskegee’s training facility successfully turned out 994 new airmen. It appeared that the winds of change were gaining speed. However, even with their training base’s official stamps of approval, their plight was not over.

Because of their color, the airmen had an uphill battle to win the right to be sent abroad to war. Those who our government rewarded with the privilege garnered an impressive flight record in Europe and North Africa.

Dubbed “Red-Tailed Angels” by allied forces that benefited from their help in the skies, it appeared that the path to desegregation was being bravely forged by these aeronautic aces.

Tested and proven many times over, these intelligent, skillful, courageous and patriotic infantrymen did indeed break ground, but the celebration of their worldwide accolades was quieted when they returned home, on cold, unwelcoming American soil.

Fortunately, the scores of achievements of America’s black citizens, along with the Civil Rights Movement, began the slow shift of acceptance. Decades after they endowed our nation with their service, the Tuskegee Airmen received Congressional Medals of Honor from President George W. Bush in 2007.

“They more than proved that black men could fly planes, but once they returned home, they were faced with the same dire discrimination they had left,” said Jessie Edens, a fourth-year world history student who co-curated the exhibit with her classmates.

In fact, in “Red Tail Captured, Red Tail Free,” author Alexander Jefferson, member of the Tuskegee Airmen and former POW, recalls how, in his nine-month stay in a German prison camp, he was treated better than in his own society in America.

Nearly a dozen members of the Atlanta chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen Inc. (TAI) remain. “There are chapters of TAI all over the country, so there’s no telling how many [remaining members] are still alive. There are plenty of ‘torch bearers’ in the various chapters, however, to keep the story alive.

The Tuskegee Airmen founded Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. in the 1970s, and since then they have had annual reunions and do many things for their communities around the country,” Eden said. Attendees can expect presenters from the Atlanta chapter shortly after the reception.

The exhibit will spotlight imagery of the airmen and their heroism during the war. The Museum of History of Holocaust Education (MHHE) welcomes all to freely view pictures hailing from the Library of Congress, the National Archives and the Tuskegee University Archives.

Those present can expect the story to be told through intimate portraits in a 10-panel display. These panels will be housed in the MHHE through the end of February.

Once the exhibit’s stay at the museum is over, it will travel the country for an additional ten years, being available to other museums, schools and libraries.

To see more details about the airmen’s momentous exhibit opening at KSU Center, visit kennesaw.edu/historymuseum.