Wings For This Man (1945) Tuskegee Airmen: Courtesy of Internet Archives
The Tuskegee Airmen:
The Fight for Military Desegregation
TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE
Tuskegee airmen training, Tuskegee, Alabama: Courtesy of Library of Congress, 1942
On July 4, 1881 after arriving in Tuskegee, Alabama, Booker T. Washington established the institute, with the intial goal to train individuals to become teachers so they could educate children throughout the South. He was able to purchase an abandoned plantation in order to start the school by raising money from local white individuals. He then recruited more teachers and expanded the size of the campus. He was the school's president until he died in 1915.
Tuskegee Institute, Tompkins Hall, Tuskegee, Macon County, AL: Courtesy of Library of Congress
"What freedom means to me is the fact that although there were those who said I couldn't do something because of my happenstance of birth"
"Freedom provided the opportunity to serve and prove that it's not just an idea for somebody to tell you can't do something — it also requires the endeavor from yourself, that yes I can. And it's in freedom that you get the opportunity to prove that you have abilities. They can be developed to not only help you as an individual, but what it means in the area of business, jobs and opportunities — you can't beat it. Freedom is the key to providing such opportunity for one and all."
~ Charles McGee, Tuskegee Airmen fighter pilot
Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama: Courtesy of Library of Congress, 1918
Tuskegee Institute faculty with Andrew Carnegie, Tuskegee, Alabama: Courtesy of Library of Congress, 1906