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Tuskegee Airman reflects on all-black unit's founding 75 years ago [View all]
Source: Reuters
World | Mon Mar 21, 2016 11:38am EDT
Tuskegee Airman reflects on all-black unit's founding 75 years ago
BY KIA JOHNSON
Seventy-five years after the founding of the all-black Tuskegee Airmen, one of its most decorated pilots says the pioneering unit showed African-Americans' fighting worth at a time of deep racial discrimination.
Retired Colonel Charles McGee, 97, said he and fellow members of the 99th Fighter Squadron had no hesitation about fighting during World War Two and showing white America that black aviators could do the job.
"They say 'African-American' or 'black,' but we're American and our country was at war," McGee told Reuters.
"We were just as interested in supporting that effort as anybody else at that time and so we turned our back on the fact that there was segregation."
McGee's unit was formed on March 22, 1941, as the first all-black aviation unit of the racially segregated U.S. armed forces.
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Tuskegee Airman reflects on all-black unit's founding 75 years ago
BY KIA JOHNSON
Seventy-five years after the founding of the all-black Tuskegee Airmen, one of its most decorated pilots says the pioneering unit showed African-Americans' fighting worth at a time of deep racial discrimination.
Retired Colonel Charles McGee, 97, said he and fellow members of the 99th Fighter Squadron had no hesitation about fighting during World War Two and showing white America that black aviators could do the job.
"They say 'African-American' or 'black,' but we're American and our country was at war," McGee told Reuters.
"We were just as interested in supporting that effort as anybody else at that time and so we turned our back on the fact that there was segregation."
McGee's unit was formed on March 22, 1941, as the first all-black aviation unit of the racially segregated U.S. armed forces.
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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tuskegee-idUSKCN0WJ2YE
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