Craig, that is a great story. I am a little surprised that any Tuskegee airman would not feel that they were special and were NOW treated that way. And I've noticed that most of these guys that I have met seem young for their real age.
It seems to me from various airshows and vets functions that I have seen that their group is pretty much honored and respected, second only perhaps to the Doolittle Raiders.
I wonder if the current group of non aviation oriented Black people know these men or know about them in the same way as they know of a pioneer sports figures like Jackie Robinson or early screen stars or medical or business people?
As for their race not being mentally competent enough to fly an airplane, who knows, one day they might even enter politics! I recall that the first woman pilot in the US was Black. And some White folks have proven that flying an airplane can be done even by some pretty foolish people.
I was born and grew up in Texas, when there were still racial barriers. One of the main things I recall was the store up on Katy highway at Piney Point, which was a Texaco service station as well as general store, had separate restroom facilities. One door said white men, one said colored, same for the women, four doors in all. Other terms like Black were not in use then, and people would think you'd been in the sun too long if you started talking about African Americans, much less people of color.. I was a bit curious and once snuck in the colored door just to see what it looked like. It was just like the restroom that we used, same facilities and kept as clean. Looking back, as a kid of perhaps 9 years old, I was slightly curious, but I did not think of the separate restrooms as being a big issue. In this one case at least, they were at least equal. Some places now have one restroom for both sexes, not gender specific. Will our kids one day look back to a long ago time when there were restrooms just for one gender?
We lived out in what was the country then, and had 21 acres with a rental house on it. A Black lady and her Son lived there. I don't know if she paid any rent or just traded work for the house. Her Son did lot's of chores, would cut the main part of the yard with the Gravely tractor, as well as often drive us 5 kids around, since my Dad was very busy at work. He and I often went up to the feed store on Katy Hwy,( now I-10) with the segregated restrooms to buy hay or blocks of ice. There was separation, but I never saw any direct act of cruelty of racisim until I got in basic training at Lackland. That still bothers me today. The Son was pehaps in his 20s and he did like to party. We almost lost him one Sat night when one of his girlfriends shot him in the side. Fortunatly it was only a .22 , but when he made it over to the other girlfriend's house for help and she found out about no. 1, she stabbed him in the other side. He survived and seemed to mend his ways. The Mom was as nice a lady as I ever knew and half raised me, like a part of our family. For me growing up there, was a lot of good times, a lot of football, and not many bad ones.
I found out in high school that when they collected our old textbooks, the ones missing pages or marked up too much, they give us new textbooks and sent the old ones to the minority schools. I knew that wasn't right. There are places now, in the most hard up schools where kids can't even take home textbooks.
I think we have come a long way on civil rights. Everyone may not have equal opportunity, but few condone outright acts of cruelty based on race.
Last edited by
Bill Greenwood on Thu Nov 19, 2009 1:46 pm, edited 4 times in total.