All Articles Tagged "tuskegee airmen"
Lady RedTail: Mildred Hemmons Carter
Today, the first day of Black History Month, also marks the 71st anniversary of Mildred Hemmons Carter earning her pilot’s license, becoming the first black woman in Alabama to do so.
Wildly ambitious for a woman of her time, Hemmons Carter continued to make the best of denied opportunities, ensuring, whether purposefully or not, that she left behind a legacy that is source of inspiration for anyone who has ever been told they couldn’t become who they wanted to be.
Mildred Hemmons was born in Benson, Alabama in 1921 to a white businessman and a black postmistress. She spent most of her childhood in Alabama but eventually moved with her parents to North Carolina. There, she graduated from high school at the age of fifteen. After high school, she decided to return to Alabama to attend the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University). She graduated at nineteen with a degree in business. Having seen so many young men enter into the newly founded flight program, Mildred realized she could do the same thing. She applied for the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP). She was rejected. At nineteen she was too young to be accepted.
Undeterred, Mildred applied again the next year and was accepted. She graduated from the program and received her license on February 1, 1941.
Mildred with former first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. Photo courtesy of Mildred Carter
Thirsty for more, Mildred decided to apply for the Advanced Program but found that women were not accepted into this higher level training. A few years after yet another rejection, Mildred learned that the military had created a new initiative to recruit female pilots with a program called Women’s Air Service Program (WASP). This time Mildred was denied admission because she was African American.
Instead of giving up flying completely, Mildred continued to pursue her interest in aviation, even giving private flying lessons. In 1942, she joined the Civil Air Patrol Squadron, although she never got a chance to patrol.
That same year she married a man who shared her passion for the sky. Herbert Carter, a fellow pilot, first noticed Mildred’s vivacious spirit in 1939 and was captivated by her. The two didn’t start dating until he discovered she too was enrolled in flight school.
A recreation of the aircrafts Mildred and Herbert flew for their air-dates.
Unable to fraternize while they were in the program, the two had many of their dates in the air. Often they would pick a time to meet over Lake Martin, 3,000 feet in the air. They couldn’t communicate with one another with radios and settled for waving and blowing kisses to one another. Mildred didn’t have access to the type of planes Herbert was able to fly and he would often play aerial leap frog, leaving clouds of dust in her windshield.
Mildred is reported as saying she wasn’t distracted by her future husband’s antics.
“I was the better pilot…I just didn’t fly the fastest aircraft.”
Herbert in front of his aircraft. He named the plane Mike after the pet name he'd given his wife.
The two married in 1942, a month before Herbert became second lieutenant and a year before he was sent off to war. The couple went on to have three children, five grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Mildred and Herbert Carter in 2011
Even though she couldn’t fly with the Tuskegee airmen, she stayed in Tuskegee, dedicated to the mission. She became the first civilian to serve in the air project, bulldozing trees to clear the airfield path.
The recognition Mildred deserved as a pilot wouldn’t come until decades later. For the second time she received a letter from WASP. This time with more uplifting news.
Seventy years after she’d earned her license, Mildred was being recognized as a member of WASP. She even received a medal with an inscription reading: “The First Women in History to Fly America.”
By the end of last year Mildred’s health began to deteriorate. She passed away with her husband, who called himself her wingman, by her side.
Mildred being honored as Alabama's first Female Pilot by Tuskegee Human and Civil Rights Multicultural Center in 2011
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The Men of ‘Red Tails’ Cover Ebony’s Black Love Issue
There’s nothing like handsome black men to celebrate black love and Ebony knows that. Gracing the cover of their February issue are Nate Parker, Terrence Howard, David Oyelowo, and Cuba Gooding, Jr, the cast of George Lucas’ upcoming movie, “The Red Tails,” which tells the story of the heroic Tuskegee airmen.
Inside, they also have the leading men’s cast mates, Elijah Kelley, Ne-Yo, Tristan Wilds, Michael B. Jordan, Method Man, and Leslie Odom, Jr.
The story of the the first African American pilots to fly in a combat squadron during World War II is one that definitely needed to be told on the big screen and it’s great to see such as strong cast of black men working in Hollywood.
Check out a trailer for Red Tails below. Do you plan to see this movie when it’s released Jan. 20?
Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.
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Maya Angelou and Mariah Carey to Receive BET Honors
BET is coming up on its fifth annual celebration of African American success in music, arts, and education, and the network has chosen two women with a lifetime of achievements to be presented with BET Honors: poet/author Maya Angelou and one of the top-selling singers of all time, Mariah Carey.
Singer/songwriter Stevie Wonder, filmmaker Spike Lee, inspirational coach Beverly Kearney, and the Tuskegee airmen will also be honored at the event which will be hosted by actress Gabrielle Union. BET Honors will take place Jan. 15 at Warner Theater in Washington, DC, and the televised airdate for the ceremony is expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
What do you think of this year’s honorees?
Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.
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Tuskegee Airmen Gets a Dose of Lucas Money, Magic
(WSJ) — “Star Wars” creator George Lucas is betting millions of his own dollars that moviegoers will be drawn to an action movie about African-American fighter pilots in World War II. Mr. Lucas has self-financed a new film entitled “Red Tails” inspired by the true story of the first organized group of African-American fighter pilots in the U.S. armed forces. Mr. Lucas put $58 million of his own money into the making of the movie and is spending $35 million more to pay the distribution costs. Mr. Lucas said through a representative that he has worked on the project for 23 years. He was attracted to the project because he wanted to make an inspirational movie for young people and he felt the African-American pilots featured in the film were role models. ”They are really the knights of the contemporary age,” Mr. Lucas said in a statement.
Tuskegee Airmen Plane Enters Smithsonian
(Washington Post) — Retired Lt. Col. Leo R. Gray, one of the Tuskegee Airmen, stands next to “The Spirit of Tuskegee,” a World War II-era plane at end of a cross-country flight to its new home at the Smithsonian, at Andrews Air Force Base. The PT-13 Stearman open-cockpit biplane was used as a trainer plane for the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. Decommissioned in 1946, used for decades as a crop duster and damaged in a crash, it was purchased at public auction and restored over the course of three years by Capt. Matthew Quy, a former B-52 bomber pilot who deploys to Afghanistan later this month, and his wife, Tina. It is one of the few surviving planes with ties to Moton Field and Tuskegee Institute, a segregated facility in Tuskegee, Ala., where nearly 1,000 black pilots were trained to fly escort for bombing missions over North Africa and Italy.
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Tuskegee Airmen: A Legacy of Heroism in The War Abroad and in The U.S.
There was a time when African Americans were thought to lack the intelligence, skill, courage and patriotism necessary in order to serve in the United States military. But no one expected that an elite group of military airmen would go down in history for their heroism during World War II. Known as the Tuskegee Airmen, these men were the first enlisted to become America’s first black military airmen.
