Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site United States

Legendary

Visit Moton Field where the Army Air Corps trained the first African American airmen to fly and maintain combat aircraft.

Photo by Ron Cogswell

In late March 1941, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited a small airfield in Tuskegee, Alabama, and asked to go for a plane ride. The pilot she chose was a Black flight instructor named Charles Alfred Anderson.

People called him "Chief." He took her up in a small yellow plane over the Alabama countryside.

The ride made a point. At the time, the U.S. military didn't allow Black Americans to fly its planes, and many people claimed they couldn't do it.

Roosevelt landed and went home to push for change. She also helped raise money to build a new training field for Black pilots.

The pressure worked. In 1941, the Army formed the 99th Pursuit Squadron, its first ever unit of Black pilots.

They trained at a new airfield called Moton Field, built between 1940 and 1942. It was the only place in the country where Black cadets took their first military flying lessons.

The field was named for Robert Russa Moton, who had led Tuskegee Institute after Booker T. Washington. Moton had died the year before.

The first class started in July 1941 with just 13 cadets. One of them was Benjamin O. Davis Jr., a West Point graduate who would lead the 99th into battle.

The pilots and the crews who supported them became known as the Tuskegee Airmen. They trained while still facing segregation, kept apart from white soldiers even on base.

In June 1943, during World War II, the 99th left for combat in North Africa. Other squadrons soon followed.

Many flew P-51 Mustang fighter planes and painted the tails bright red. That's how they earned the nickname the Red Tails.

Their job was often to protect American bombers on long, dangerous missions over Europe. Their skill helped prove what Black pilots could do.

After the war, Davis became the first Black general in the U.S. Air Force. Moton Field closed in 1946.

In 1998, Congress made the field a National Historic Site so the story wouldn't be forgotten. In 2021, it appeared on a U.S. quarter.

Walk into the two restored hangars, where the airmen's planes were once repaired. Look up at the full-size model of a red-tailed P-51 Mustang. Listen to the recorded voices of the airmen themselves, telling their stories in their own words.

Sources: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Google Arts & Culture (National Park Service), and Wikipedia.