Racial Discrimination In The Tuskegee Experiment

Tuskegee Airmen Succeed, Despite Odds Against Them In the beginning of World War II, the U.S. government received an enormous amount of backlash for not allowing any African Americans into the elite status of the armed forces. This lead to the “Tuskegee Experiment” which was designed to see if African Americans were fit for war. Because of this experiment, this allowed “996 pilots and more than 15,000 ground personnel” to serve on the “all-black units” that trained here at Moton Field (History.com). In these units, they had to overcome racial discrimination and other racial obstacles. Throughout the war, the unit was credited with 15,500 combat missions and legend has it, they never lost a bomber they were escorting due to enemy fire. Because of their amazing accomplishments, this lead towards President “Truman abolishing racial discrimination in the military with the Executive order of 9981” (Impact). Works Cited
HEWITT, NANCY A. EXPLORING AMERICAN HISTORIES THINKING THROUGH SOURCES FOR AMERICAN HISTORIES VOLUME 2, 2ND ED... . LAUNCHPAD FOR EXPLORING AMERICAN HISTORIES AND. N.p.: BEDFORD BKS ST MARTIN'S, 2016. Print.
History.com Staff. "Tuskegee Airmen."
All the other markers I found were about certain people and how they contributed to the Tuskegee Airmen. For Example, I found one marker that talks about Captain Andrews Maples Jr. who was a Tuskegee Airman in the 301st Fighter Squadron but was shot down over the Adriatic Sea during a bomber escort mission. It says he was declared missing in action in June of 1945. Charles B. Smith was a different Tuskegee Airman that I read about and he was in the 99th Fighter Squadron. It said he was a technical sergeant and crew chief in North Africa and in Europe. Towards the end of the marker it talks about the impact that the Tuskegee Airmen had on the integration of America’s Armed