The Tuskegee Airmen

The 1995 historical fiction offering telling the story of the Tuskegee flight training school the U.S. Air Corp set up as an experiment to see if Black pilots could be successful in combat. This film portrays snapshots of interactions that were most likely typical, from racist verbal abuse, self doubt, self confidence, fear, pride, etc. The graduating class in this film (the 99th air group) is sent to North Africa and given effectively non-combat flying duty. Then they are transferred to Italy, join with other wings of the Tuskegee flyers, and form the 332nd. This group is given escort duty for bombers, win them over with their skill (no bombers lost) and become accepted. Not quite as glossy (or glossed over) as the Disney version (see The Red Tails), but important as the first Hollywood telling of this story. What is particularly disturbing to me is the fact that we are measuring time in decades and seeing very little change in core cultural norms.

4 stars (out of 5)