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In this inspiring account of the Tuskegee Airmen-the country's first African American military pilots-historian J. Todd Moye captures the challenges and triumphs of these brave aviators in their own words, drawing on more than 800 interviews recorded for the National Park Service's Tuskegee Airmen Oral History Project. Denied the right to fully participate in the U.S. war effort alongside whites at the beginning of World War II, African Americans-spurred on by black newspapers and civil rights organizations such as the NAACP-compelled the prestigious Army Air Corps to open its training programs to black pilots, despite the objections of its top generals. Thousands of young men came from every part of the country to Tuskegee, Alabama, in the heart of the segregated South, to enter the program, which expanded in 1943 to train multi-engine bomber pilots in addition to fighter pilots. By the end of the war, Tuskegee Airfield had become a small city populated by black mechanics, parachute packers, doctors, and nurses. Together, they helped prove that racial segregation of the fighting forces was so inefficient as to be counterproductive to the nation's defense. Freedom Flyers brings to life the legacy of a determined, visionary cadre of African American airmen who proved their capabilities and patriotism beyond question, transformed the armed forces-formerly the nation's most racially polarized institution-and jump-started the modern struggle for racial equality. "The personal nature of the examples Moye cites make it a far deeper and richer narrative than typical WWII fare...The author's friendly style should open the title up to even casual readers." -Booklist "An excellent history of the first African-American military pilots...Moye's lively prose and the intimate details of the personal narratives yield an accessible scholarly history that also succeeds as vivid social history." -Publishers Weekly
Show moreIn this inspiring account of the Tuskegee Airmen-the country's first African American military pilots-historian J. Todd Moye captures the challenges and triumphs of these brave aviators in their own words, drawing on more than 800 interviews recorded for the National Park Service's Tuskegee Airmen Oral History Project. Denied the right to fully participate in the U.S. war effort alongside whites at the beginning of World War II, African Americans-spurred on by black newspapers and civil rights organizations such as the NAACP-compelled the prestigious Army Air Corps to open its training programs to black pilots, despite the objections of its top generals. Thousands of young men came from every part of the country to Tuskegee, Alabama, in the heart of the segregated South, to enter the program, which expanded in 1943 to train multi-engine bomber pilots in addition to fighter pilots. By the end of the war, Tuskegee Airfield had become a small city populated by black mechanics, parachute packers, doctors, and nurses. Together, they helped prove that racial segregation of the fighting forces was so inefficient as to be counterproductive to the nation's defense. Freedom Flyers brings to life the legacy of a determined, visionary cadre of African American airmen who proved their capabilities and patriotism beyond question, transformed the armed forces-formerly the nation's most racially polarized institution-and jump-started the modern struggle for racial equality. "The personal nature of the examples Moye cites make it a far deeper and richer narrative than typical WWII fare...The author's friendly style should open the title up to even casual readers." -Booklist "An excellent history of the first African-American military pilots...Moye's lively prose and the intimate details of the personal narratives yield an accessible scholarly history that also succeeds as vivid social history." -Publishers Weekly
Show morePrologue: "This is Where You Sit"
Chapter 1: The Use of Negro Manpower in War
Chapter 2: The Black Eagles Take Flight
Chapter 3: The Experiment
Chapter 4: Combat on Several Fronts
Chapter 5: The Trials of the 477th
Chapter 6: Integrating the Air Force
Epilogue: "Let's Make it a Holy Crusade All Around"
Notes
Note on Sources
Bibliography
J. Todd Moye is an Associate Professor of History and the Director of the Oral History Program at the University of North Texas. A historian of the American civil rights movement, he directed the National Park Service's Tuskegee Airmen Oral History Project from 2000 to 2005. He consulted on Double Victory, the Lucasfilm documentary about the Tuskegee Airmen.
"[A] superb job in presenting the history of the first
African-American military pilots...quite gripping." --ARMY
"Excellent history of the first African-American military
pilots...Moye's lively prose and the intimate details of the
personal narratives yield an accessible scholarly history that also
succeeds as vivid social history." --Publishers Weekly
"A scholarly but accessible treatment of a significant forerunner
of the civil-rights movement." --Kirkus Reviews
"In several particularly moving passages, veterans recall the heavy
load they carried to attain not only personal success but also
achievement for their entire race...The personal nature of the
examples Moye cites make it a far deeper and richer narrative than
typical WWII fare...As both civil rights and U.S. military history,
the Tuskegee Airmen comprise a worthy subject , while the author's
friendly style should open the title up to even casual
readers."
--Booklist
"This book is an important contribution that will be enjoyed by
general readers and historians." --ForeWord Reviews
"Moye, a history professor at the University of North Texas,
directed the National Park Service's five-year Tuskegee Airmen Oral
History Project. He draws on those interviews to inject a
first-person, insider feel into his exhaustive study of the
Tuskegee program." --The Dallas Morning News
"Moye draws on three elements to set his book apart as the best
overall account of how blacks aspired to fly for the Army Air Corps
were accepted into an experimental program at the Tuskegee
Institute in Alabama starting in 1941, and then amassed a
remarkable wartime record that ultimately led to the integration of
the U.S. armed forces." -- Aviation History
"[An] enriching, deeply humane, and academically rigorous volume."
-- CHOICE
"J. Todd Moye's Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II
is the best book yet written about the total experience of the
Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American or black pilots in the
Army Air Forces, and their support personnel...The book is valuable
not only for its wealth of information about the Tuskegee Airmen
groups and squadrons, but also for placing them in the broader
context of American history, including the sociological
and political forces that pressured the War Department and the Army
Air Corps, and later the Army Air Forces, to include blacks among
its pilots, not only for fighters but also for bombers." --Daniel
Haulman, H-Net
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