Tuskegee Airmen Unit

According to Chase’s Calendar of Events, the Tuskegee Airmen unit was activated on March 22nd in 1941. Earlier in January the War Department had announced the creation of the 99th Pursuit Squadron which would become America’s first Africa-American aviator unit. These men received their training in Alabama at Tuskegee Institute, the first institution of higher learning for Blacks and the nearby U.S. Army airfield.

In March, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited the site and asked to take a ride with one of the Tuskegee pilots. Charles A. Anderson, the Chief Civilian Flight Instructor who would later become known as “The Father of Black Aviation” was her pilot that day. Afterwards, Mrs. Roosevelt became an avid supporter of this effort even using her influence as a Julius Rosenwald Fund trustee to have get funding to help bring the Tuskegee airfield up to required military standards. This pioneering unit would eventually become highly decorated, shooting down one hundred eleven enemy planes and destroying two hundred seventy-three planes on the ground. Their skill, bravery and patriotism helped win the war AND contributed to the enactment of Executive Order Number 9981 which directed equality of treatment and opportunity within all the U.S. military forces.