The Tuskegee Airmen

On January 16, 1941, the War Department announced the creation of the Army Air Corps 99th Pursuit Squadron – the nation’s first African American flying unit.

The 99th Pursuit Squadron trained at the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, where there was an airfield and a civilian pilot training program. Soon, “Tuskegee Airmen” became the nickname for the World War II Army Air Forces units that were made up predominantly of African American pilots and maintenance crews.

From 1941 to 1946, hundreds of African Americans successfully trained as pilots at the Tuskegee Institute, serving with distinction throughout the war. They flew 1,578 combat missions and earned three Distinguished Unit Citations, at least one Silver Star, and 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses. However, they were fighting for freedom on two fronts: against Nazism in Europe and against discrimination at home in the United States.

From the beginning of the war, African Americans serving in the Armed Forces were segregated into all-black units and limited in the types of positions they could hold. To allow for the creation of the 99th Pursuit Squadron and similar units, Congress had passed legislation in 1939 expanding the Army Air Corps (the precursor to today’s Air Force). Among the act’s provisions was the creation of training programs located at historically black colleges to prepare African Americans for Air Corps service. It wasn’t until after the war that President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981 in 1948, leading to the desegregation of the United States military.

On March 29, 2007, these pilots received the Congressional Gold Medal from President George W. Bush for their commitment and service to the nation.

In celebration of the 75th anniversary of the creation of this historic unit, a flight report from a mission flown in support of the Anzio, Italy invasion and a petition sent to the War Department by officers protesting discriminatory practices in the Army Air Forces were on display in the â€śFeatured Documents” exhibit in the East Rotunda Gallery of the National Archives in Washington, DC, from January  7, 2016, through March 2, 2016.

Past Featured Records

Title IX
An Act of June 23, 1972, Public Law 92-318, 86 STAT 235, to Amend the Higher Education Act of 1965, the Vocational Educational Act of 1963, the General Education Provisions Act (Creating a National Foundation for Postsecondary Education and a National Institute of Education), the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, Public Law 874, Eighty-First Congress, and Related Acts, ...
Court-Martial record of Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin, March 10, 1778.
On March 10, 1778, Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin became the first U.S. soldier court-martialed for “attempting to commit sodomy” with another soldier. His sentence was to be literally drummed out of the Continental Army by its regiments’ fifes and drums. Enslin was told “never to return.” More than 230 years after Enslin’s court martial, gay men, lesbians, ...
Indictment for illegal voting, 1872
Susan B. Anthony devoted more than fifty years of her life to the cause of woman suffrage. After casting her ballot in the 1872 Presidential election in her hometown of Rochester, New York, she was arrested, indicted, tried, and convicted for voting illegally. At her two-day trial in June 1873, which she later described as "the greatest judicial outrage ...
Sylvia Mendez and the Struggle for Mexican American Civil Rights
Friday, September 13, 2024 - Wednesday, October 2, 2024East Rotunda Gallery Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez moved to Orange County, California, with their children Sylvia, Gonzalo Jr., and Jerome in 1944. When they tried to enroll in the majority-white school near their home, they were instead sent to a segregated school for Hispanic students. The Mendez family filed a ...
A President Resigns – 50 Years Later
Thursday, August 1, 2024 - Thursday, September 12, 2024East Rotunda Gallery “I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first.” –Richard M. Nixon, August 8, 1974 During the night of June 17, 1972, five ...