Todd Moye, “Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II” (Oxford UP, 2010)

New Books in African American Studies · Jul 23, 2010 · 1h 3m

In the 1940s, the United States military performed an “experiment,” the substance of which was the formation of an all-black aviation unit known to history as the “Tuskegee Airmen.” In light of the honorable service record of countless African Americans, allowing blacks to become fighter and bomber pilots might not seem very “experimental” to you, but you have to put yourself in the mindset of the era in question to understand how “experimental” it was. Jim-Crow segregation was nearly universal, especially, though not exclusively, in the South. The armed forces were similarly segregated, with…