Product details
- ISBN 9780275991951
- Publication Date: 30 Jan 2007
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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At the age of 17, Samuel L. Broadnax—enamored with flying—enlisted and trained as a pilot at the Tuskegee Army Air Base. Although he left the Air Corps at the end of the Second World War, his experiences inspired him to talk with other pilots and black pioneers of aviation. Blue Skies, Black Wings recounts the history of African Americans in the skies from the very beginnings of manned flight.
From Charles Wesley Peters, who flew his own plane in 1911, and Eugene Bullard, a black American ace with the French in World War I, to the 1945 Freeman Field mutiny against segregationist policies in the Air Corps, Broadnax paints a vivid picture of the people who fought oppression to make the skies their own.
Samuel L. Broadnax enlisted in the Army Air Corps at age 17 and graduated from Tuskegee Army Air Base with Class-45A in March 1945 as a fighter pilot. One of the celebrated Tuskegee Airmen, he was assigned to the 332nd Replacement Training Unit. He later attended Yuba college, Howard University, and the University of California, Berkeley, and has worked as a newscaster and journalist. In 2006, the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor was awarded to the Tuskegee Airmen.
