Tuskegee Airmen Essay

Now that there is some background information about the Tuskegee Airmen, it is time to learn about one in particular. His name is Charles McGee. Charles McGee was a pilot who fought in Italy with the 332nd squadron. Charles was born in 1919 on December 17th. He was the second child of three. Unfortunately his mother died when he was one years old after giving birth to his sister. His father had multiple jobs, so Charles moved a lot during his childhood. He lived in several places including Ohio, Florida, West Virginia, Illinois, and Iowa. As a kid he was in the Boy Scouts of America program. While in the Boy Scouts, Charles earned the Eagle Scout award. He also visited his grandparents often in West Virginia. Charles had a rather normal childhood besides the moving from state to state.

Fortunately, others shared the same desire, and pressure was mounted on the Roosevelt administration to allow greater participation by blacks as the country moved towards war. The administration, therefore, directed the War Department to organize a flying unit just for blacks. To his delight, he was assigned to undergo training in the very first class at the Tuskegee Army Air Field. Finishing his training in 1942, Ben Jr. was one of only five blacks to complete the course, and become the first black officer to make a solo flight in an Army Air Corps plane. He was then promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. In July 1942, Ben was assigned as the commander of the 99th Pursuit Squadron, which history would later call the Tuskegee Airmen.

There are many influential people in history that do not get the recognition they deserve. Often times many critical and important events and names get buried within the world’s history, while others outshine them and take all the credit. For example, most people recognize Martin Luther King Jr. as a major civil rights activist, but they tend to forget people like A. Phillip Randolph and Thurgood Marshall, even though one organized the walk to Washington and the other also risked his life to get freedom for his people and wanted change. The same goes for the Tuskegee Airmen that fought for this country at point in history. The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African American division that fought in the war by air warfare. They kept their morale high even while facing segregation and racism from their leading officers and other divisions. Not only this, but their own country that they were fighting for, did not have any respect for them.

On July 19, 1941 the U.S. Air Force created a program in Alabama to train African Americans as fighter pilots(Tuskegee Airmen1). Basic flight training was done by the Tuskegee institute, a school founded by Booker T. Washington in 1881(Tuskegee Airmen 1). Cadets would finish basic training at Tuskegee's Moton Field and then move on to the Tuskegee Army Air Field to complete his transition from training to combat aircraft. The early Tuskegee squad were taught to fit in with the famous 99th fighter squadron, tagged for combat duty in North Africa. Other Tuskegee pilots were commissioned to the 332d Fighter Group which fought alongside with the 99th Squadron based out of Italy. By the end of the war, 992 men had completed training at

Before WORLD WAR I, military service represented a source of black pride. Black educators, clergymen, and the press frequently referred to Negro heroes of America’s past wars. After the Civil War, the U.S, Army maintained four regular Negro regiments –the 9th and 10th Calvary and the 24th and 25th Infantry. These units included veterans of the civil war and the frontier Indian fighting regiments. Retired sergeants often became respected, conservative leaders in their communities. This history set a foundation for black support and involvement in America’s future wars.

Throughout history, racial superiority has always been sought after and has resulted in several tragedies. In order to carry out the Indian Removal act of 1830, black men were allowed to join the military, and were later named “Buffalo Soldiers”. In the article, the author talks mainly about the

Many people know of the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, they were the first African American Fighting group that flew combat missions for the United States military in World War II. Throughout their time overseas they were breaking down racial barriers by proving that colored men can fly a plane just as well as their white aviation counterparts. In order to get their chance to prove that they were able to serve their country, many things had to go right before they were allowed to take their wheels off the ground. They faced constant discrimination but because of that discrimination they were able to conquer the stereotypes and rise to become some of the most decorated

When a person, who is a citizen of this country, thinks about civil rights, they often they about the Civil Rights Movement which took place in this nation during mid 11950s and primarily through the 1960s. They think about the marches, sit-ins, boycotts, and other demonstrations that took place during that period. They also think about influential people during that period such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, John Lewis, Rosa parks, and other people who made contributions during that movement which change the course of society's was of life in America. In some people view, the Civil Rights Movement began when the Supreme Court rendered their decision in Brown vs. Education, or when Rosa Parks refused to give up her

(Setting the scene) In 1881 a man named Booker T. Washington started a school in Alabama called Tuskegee Institute. His thoughts were very controversial because he said that black people should stop trying to get integrated into white lives and live in their own society. He was once a slave so that changed his perspective to see that blacks were not treated the same. He felt with many others black would have to same rights as whites, but they should also be dependent on themselves. Much later his school became the first school to train black people for war. They were known as the Tuskegee Airmen.

Jesse Jackson, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B DuBois are all African American leaders. All of these men were leaders in their own time and their own sense, living in different eras with different views, but they all shared common ground. All four were African Americans trying to overcome obstacles and become influential leaders in their society.

Slavery was abolished after the Civil War, but the Negro race still was not accepted as equals into American society. To attain a better understanding of the events and struggles faced during this period, one must take a look at its' literature. James Weldon Johnson does an excellent job of vividly depicting an accurate portrait of the adversities faced before the Civil Rights Movement by the black community in his novel “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.” One does not only read this book, but instead one takes a journey alongside a burdened mulatto man as he struggles to claim one race as his own.

In 1865, the United States government implemented what was known as Reconstruction. Its’ purpose was to remove slavery from the south, and give African-American’s the freedom in which they deserved. However, the freedom that they deserved was not the freedom that they received. With documents like The Black Codes restricting them from numerous privileges that white people had and the terroristic organization known as the Klu Klux Klan attacking and killing them, African-American’s were still being oppressed by their government as well as their fellow man. Slavery may have been abolished, but African-American’s were not yet given the freedom and rights that their white counterparts took for granted.

Ever since the founding of the United States of America, blacks have continuously been considered inferior to the white race. In the year of 1954, a substantial advancement in the fight for equality for blacks was prevalent. Countless prominent leaders of the United States realized the injustices that the blacks were forced to endure daily. Stated blatantly in the Declaration of Independence, it is said that all men are created equally. Disregarding the opinions of the men in the South, people began to realize that it was time to truly consider every man who is a citizen of the United States as equals. A life where segregation was not prevalent in schools, restaurants, theatres, parks, buses, and all public

During this time, white Americans bought and traded African Americans as slaves. Although President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, inequality between blacks and whites persisted. It wasn’t until the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s that inequality finally ended. Blacks have fought hard

Though the conclusion of the American Civil War in 1965 marked the end of slavery in the United States, African-Americans would not see anything resembling true freedom from the segregation and isolation imposed by slavery until very recently, and only after decades of difficult struggle. Some of the most important achievements occurred during the 1960s, when a generation of African-American leaders and activists, including Martin Luther King Jr., Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and the Freedom Riders, fought against some of the last vestiges of explicit, institutionalized segregation, discrimination, and isolation in order to attain equality and civil rights. Only by examining the treatment of African-Americans throughout America's history can one begin to understand how the the ending of slavery, the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and the contemporary issues facing the African-American community are inextricably linked. In turn this allows one to see how rather than existing as a single, identifiable turning point in the history of civil rights, African American's struggle for equality and an end to isolation must be considered as an ongoing project.