Jim Crow earns his wings: The establishment of segregated flight training at Tuskegee, Alabama, 1934-1942

Until 1941 the United States Army Air Corps (predecessor to the United States Air Force) refused to admit blacks, In January of that year, the Air Corps announced that it would establish a segregated pursuit squadron and base it at a new Army flying field, to be constructed near Tuskegee, Alabama. In June 1941 the Air Corps began to train blacks when the first class of student pilots entered introductory flight training under civilian instructors at Tuskegee Institute, the famous school established by Booker T. Washington; several months later they transferred to Tuskegee Army Air Field for the advanced phases of training, taught by Air Corps instructors. When they graduated in March 1942, they became the first black pilots in the nation's armed forces.;Tuskegee's name was first associated with aviation during the mid-1930s, through the efforts of several alumni; by 1936 the school was on the verge of building an airfield and adding aviation to its curriculum. Although this initiative ultimately failed, in 1939 Tuskegee finally launched an aviation program under the auspices of the federally-sponsored Civilian Pilot Training (CPT) Program. By the end of 1940, the Institute had supplanted Chicago as the center of black aviation.;The inclusion of Tuskegee and several other black schools in the CPT Program was a by-product of a pre-World War II campaign to force the Air Corps to admit blacks. It grew out of three interrelated elements--black Americans' traditional interest in military service, their burgeoning interest in aviation, and the emergence of civil rights as a national issue. Throughout 1939-1940 advocates of Air Corps participation lobbied Congress and petitioned the War Department, seeking to overturn the Air Corps' policy of racial exclusion. Consequently, in fall 1940 the War Department directed the establishment of a segregated squadron.;Although Chicago's black aviation community hoped to play a role in the training of black military pilots, the Air Corps sought the cooperation of Tuskegee Institute once the decision to establish a black unit was forced upon it. The administration at Tuskegee willingly supported these initiatives and played an active role in establishing the program for training black Air Corps pilots. The Institute's efforts were criticized by some blacks, who charged it with perpetuating segregation by collaborating with the Air Corps. Nevertheless, by March 1942 blacks had gained a foothold in the formerly all-white air arm, and by the end of World War II, almost 1,000 qualified as pilots at Tuskegee.