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Tuskegee Airmen Receive Recognition Long Overdue
By Won Kim
The Tuskegee Airmen, comprised of all black pilots during World War II, will receive national recognition that is long overdue. Although the pilots have attained numerous awards and medals, they will be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, which is the highest honor that Congress can bestow.
The struggle for their much-deserved recognition has been led by Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and currently only 130 of the pilots that served as a Tuskegee Airmen still are alive out of the original 1,000. "The sad part of the story is when they came home, they were just black men who served their country and were subjected to the same discrimination that existed before their heroic acts," Rangel told CBS News.
Although the Tuskegee Airmen served during a time when racism was rampant, especially in the parts where the airmen trained—Tuskegee, Ala.—the 1,000 black pilots that made up the group was a group that defied all odds. Not only did they fly more than 16,000 times during the war, which led to 900 medals, but they have the unique achievement of never having a bomber they protected being shot down by the Germans.
Lt. Col. Herbert Carter, one of the surviving Tuskegee pilots, is glad to finally receive the recognition that was absent decades earlier. "It simply says the United States of America is saying, finally, a job well done," says Carter
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Tuskegee:Pride of the Swift Growing South
" I tried to explain it all to him, but I think I may have lost him at upload & e-mail
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