US 'Tuskegee Airmen' honored with historic site in Alabama

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Thousands of people from across the US attended an opening ceremony Friday afternoon of the Alabama field where the first all-black group of American pilots, referred to as the Tuskegee Airmen, trained for World War Two. Their role in the war eventually led to desegregation in the US armed forces. The field was named a National Historic Site. The airmen fought Adolf Hitler overseas and segregation and prejudice on American soil, being degraded as second-class citizens and watching as German prisoners of war were treated better than them. At first called the "Tuskegee Experiment," the first aviation cadet class began in July 1941 with 13 students at the Tuskegee Army Air Field, about 64 kilometers east of Montgomery. Black people weren't allowed to fly in the military at the time, and the "experiment" was to see whether they could pilot airplanes and handle heavy machinery.