The Tuskegee Airmen

In the 1940s, when the world was at war, finding enough pilots for the military was a national challenge. The solution came from a small university tucked in the middle of Alabama. Tuskegee University was teaching African Americans how to fly—but was the rest of the world ready to accept black pilots? In the beginning, the answer was a clear no. However, hundreds of missions and amazing aerial acrobatics turned that opinion around. Today, the Tuskegee Airmen are considered key role models in the country’s fight for civil rights and equality for everyone.