Silver Wings & Civil Rights: The Fight to Fly

Director's Notes

JON TIMOTHY ANDERSON

The story of the Tuskegee Airmen has inspired me since I first read about them in the studies of WWII. They were a group of young Americans who flew and fought even though they lived in a country that, at the time, institutionalized racism. Many have heard about the black fighter pilots who never lost a bomber they escorted over fortress Europe, a great feat for any aviator or soldier.

But their greater achievement is lost to many more.

The Tuskegee Airmen actually fought two wars, one that changed the world, and one that helped change our nation. 101 black officers of the 477th bomber group were arrested and considered to be mutinous when they entered a whites-only U.S. Army officer's club in which they were not welcome. The U.S. military was a microcosm of the society at the time, accepting minorities as a whole but denying them personal liberties. In what would later be known as civil disobedience, the men of the bomber group defied the U.S. government and caused a change in the U.S. military when President
Truman finally desegrated the Armed forces in 1948. This true story of one of the first civil rights battles has never fully been told until now. This project is unique in that the entire Tuskegee Airman experience is told first-hand by those who lived it: not only the fighter pilots of the European campaign, but also those who won the battle of will stateside. This
project is a tribute to our WWII veterans who freed the world, and to those who lifted the veil of the ignorance of racism.

Jon Anderson (L) interviews original Tuskegee Airman
Mitchell Higginbotham in August, 2003.

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