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March 28, 2007
Tuskegee Airmen to get Congressional Gold Medal
President George W. Bush will honor the surviving members of the Tuskegee Airmen with a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award given by Congress, at a ceremony on Thursday at the U.S. Capitol.The airmen helped lay the groundwork for the civil rights movement and influenced President Harry Truman's decision to desegregate the army in 1948.
[...]
In all, about 1,000 pilots were trained, and also ground crew. Fewer than a third of the pilots are still alive to receive the medal.
"We had the feeling that the program was designed to fail," said one of the pilots, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Charles Dryden, who graduated from the school in 1942.
"Our mantra was that we dared not fail because if we did, the doors of future aviation would be closed to black people forever," he said in an interview at his home in Atlanta.
Dryden, 86, who stayed in the Air Force after World War Two, recalled the "horrible discrimination" he faced and said he decided to stay away from whites in Alabama as far as possible to avoid breaking the racial mores of the south.
[...]
"I had a deep feeling of fear," he said of his first combat encounter. "It wasn't about the enemy, it was about myself ... But the first time I saw the enemy I ran (flew) toward him and I knew that I was a tiger and not a pussy cat."
On graduating from the flying school, he rode the train back to New York wearing his uniform.
"As I was proudly preening my way through the terminal a little white lady said: 'Here Boy. Carry my bags."' The remark angered him but taught him a lesson. "It humbled me. It taught me: It's not the uniform that counts, it's what's inside."
(via yahoo news)
Posted by Groonk at March 28, 2007 01:11 PM | Ministry of Alabama, History, WorldWarII
