The Tuskegee Airmen: Two Victories!
Much has been written, discussed, and preserved about the Tuskegee Airmen. Yet the average person still knows little about who they were or why they were important. For the next ten years, the National Tuskegee Airmen Museum will present a Tuskegee Airmen exhibition in this gallery. Annual updates will keep the exhibition fresh and informative.
This year, the exhibition will focus on how and why the Tuskegee Airmen fought two wars and earned two wins. One war was against the German led Axis in Europe and North Africa, and the other was against the blatant institutional racism they faced in the United States.
With protests from the Black Press, Black colleges, NAACP, and the black community, and support from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the Army Air Corp to develop a segregated unit for Black pilots. The Air Corp called the program the “Tuskegee Experiment”; the Tuskegee Airmen called it an Experience.
This exhibition was created in partnership between the National Tuskegee Airmen Museum and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American Museum, and is sponsored by The Ford Fund. The exhibit is located at the The Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum inside the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.
