Tuskegee history takes flight again

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marvel at the thought of the Tuskegee Airmen for a number of

reasons. What was inside a black, working-class kid in the heat of

a segregated society that made him or her think that they could fly

a plane?

There were

dozens of these young people whose dreams of flying took them to

Tuskegee, AL where an experiment to prove that black people lacked

the courage to fight in combat, let alone fly, was being set

up.

The determined,

yet starry-eyed kids included the likes of my stepdad who signed up

for the U.S. Air Force right after high school. Lt. Col. Virgil

Brashears died years before this country decided to officially

honor the elite group of patriots; my mother accepted the

Congressional Medal of Honor on his behalf in 2007.

Another one of

those kids was George Carper from St. Louis. Mr. Carper is an avid

of reader of my column and reached out to me some years ago when I

wrote about the Tuskegee Airmen. He signed up after graduating from

Sumner High School in 1941 but at only 17 years old, he was too

young to fly so he was put in mechanics training until he was of

age. This was a big disappointment, but his father’s pointed

question put him back in the game.

“You wanna fly,

don’t cha?“ he asked young George, meaning this was a necessary

step to get inside the cockpit.

When the movie

Red Tails came out, I thought about Mr. Carper. I wanted

to see what he thought about it.

I called his

home and his wife of 61 years, Imelda, gave me the sad news. Mr.

Carper had a stroke in December and was recovering in a

rehabilitative facility.

When I visited

Carper, his paralysis was noticeable and his speech slow and

sometimes laborious. But his eyes flickered with delight when he

talked about that time in history.

“One of those

white boys told me, ‘You people can’t drive a truck,’ implying

that flying a plane was wa-a-ay out of their reach,” he

said.

When Carper

finished his pilot’s training, he went back to the guy and said, “I

may not be able to drive a truck but I can fly a plane!”

There was a big

push using social media to get people to see Red Tails

that opening weekend. This was because of the difficulty in getting

investors for the movie. George Lucas of Star Wars fame

took on the project but not without his fair share of

critics.

Courtland

Milloy of the Washington Post said the movie was a

disservice to the Airmen. He pointed out that the “disheveled,

undisciplined, crude and uncouth” qualities of the men in the movie

were the “exact opposite of the real mean who served in the

all-black fighter group.”

I have been

trying to get folks to refer to them as the Tuskegee Air People but

that doesn’t quite roll off the tongue as nicely. The fact is that

Tuskegee Airmen included a few female pilots, like Mildred Hemmons

Carter. The Tuskegee Air family also included navigators,

instructors, nurses, parachute packers, clerical personnel and

others who made up the support system for the successful

unit.

Whatever one’s

view of the movie, it has created new interest in the Tuskegee Air

project. George Carper has seen The Tuskegee Airmen movie

starring Laurence Fishburne several times. “It always gets me right

here,” he said as he lightly thumps his heart with his

fist.

My mother also

informed me that Double Victory is out, a documentary

about the Tuskegee Air family in their own words. I think I might

like this version better as it chronicles the battles fought on two

fronts: the war against global fascism abroad and the struggle for

racial justice and equality at home.

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I think Mr.

Carper would like this version too.

Tuskegee history takes flight again

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