さんのインスタグラム写真 - (Instagram)「The Tuskegee Airmen were the first Black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps (AAC), a precursor of the U.S. Air Force. Trained at the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama, they flew more than 15,000 individual sorties in Europe and North Africa during World War II. Their impressive performance earned them more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, and helped encourage the eventual integration of the U.S. armed forces. During the 1920s and ‘30s, young African Americans who aspired to become pilots were met with significant obstacles, starting with the widespread racist belief that Black people could not learn to fly or operate sophisticated aircraft. In 1938, with Europe teetering on the brink of another great war, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced he would expand the civilian pilot training program in the United States. At the time, racial segregation remained the rule in the U.S. armed forces—as well as much of the country. Much of the military establishment believed Black soldiers were inferior to whites, and performed relatively poorly in combat. But as the AAC began ramping up its training program, Black newspapers like the Chicago Defender and Pittsburgh Courier joined civil rights groups like the NAACP in arguing that Black Americans be included. In September 1940, Roosevelt’s White House responded to such lobbying campaigns by announcing that the AAC would soon begin training Black pilots. The Tuskegee Airmen represent an important step forward in preparing the nation for the racial integration of the military, which began with President Harry Truman who issued Executive Order 9981 desegregating the U.S. Armed Forces and mandating equality of opportunity and treatment on July 26, 1948. 📸: National Archives #BlackHistoryMonth #ShareBlackStories」2月10日 0時54分