Flying High : Black Aviators’ Global Ambitions before the Tuskegee Airmen
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| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | During the 1920s and 1930s, aviation became a popular source of fascination and ambitions. White American, French, and Italian flyers rewrote records for long-distance, non-stop, and solo flights; performances of groundbreaking plane tricks, too, became a popular form of entertainment. Charles Lindbergh, in particular, came to embody the new horizons opened up by aviation. His feats highlighted America’s progress in aviation as well as its political and technological domination over Pan-America. While white flyers dominated newspaper headlines and radio broadcasts, black aviators were flying under the radar. In my presentation, I will explore the geographical ambitions of little-known black aviators such as Bessie Coleman, William J. Powell, John C. Robinson, Charles A. Anderson, Albert E. Forsythe, and Leon Desire Paris to demonstrate how aspirations translated from modest goals within Black aviation communities to national and global accomplishments. Black aviation communities were established in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, and Kansas City during the 1920s and flourished throughout the 1930s, culminating in a push to institute a civilian pilot training program in 1939, which later evolved into the Tuskegee Airmen. Black aviators were to become a source of pride and resistance. National aviation achievements by African Americans, such as cross-country flights and plans to establish segregated flying networks, would serve as precursors and inspiration for global outreach and cooperation in aviation between communities of African descent worldwide in the 1930s. Joint projects of African Americans and pioneer aviators in Haiti, as well as the participation of a Chicago-based African American pilot in the Italo-Ethiopian war against Italy’s formidable air force indicate that black pilots started local, but aimed global long before the Tuskegee Airmen. |