The United States has no shortage of famous military units, from the Civil War’s Iron Brigade to the 101st Airborne, but one would be hard pressed to find one that had to go through as many hardships off the field as the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African American fighter pilots who overcame Jim Crow at home and official segregation in the military to serve their country in the final years of World War II. In fact, it required a concerted effort by groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the extreme circumstances brought about by World War II that the military eventually decided to establish the “Tuskegee Experiment.”
The black crews trained at Tuskegee before being sent overseas, and even then, they faced discrimination from those who didn’t trust them to do more than escort bombers flown by white pilots. However, as the men proved their worth in the heat of battle, some of the squadrons’ red markings helped them earn the nickname “Red Tails,” and their track record was so good that eventually the white pilots of American bombers wanted to fly with them. As Tuskegee airman Roscoe Brown eloquently put it, “They have a saying that excellence is the antidote to prejudice; so, once you show you can do it, some of the barriers will come down.”
In the summer of 1942, the first group of African American recruits stepped off a bus into the pine woods of North Carolina, bound for an experiment the Marine Corps had long vowed never to attempt. Their destination - Montford Point, a hastily constructed satellite to the new Camp Lejeune - was more than a training ground. It was a compromise with democracy, a segregated doorway into an institution that had defined itself for generations by who could not enter. The Corps’ exclusivity had a racial edge, as the Marines had barred black men outright from 1798 all the way up the start of the Second World War.
