The Tuskegee Airmen — Part 3 – Jim Crow’s Graveyard. Shooting down #German airplanes, rather than effectively carrying out the assigned duties of close ground support and bomber escort, emerged as the criterion for the judgment of combat performance for the 99th. Ironically, at the height of the controversy stateside, the 99th received a reassignment…
Criticism of the 99th’s overseas combat record was instantaneous and virulent. After only a few months in combat, the Commander of the 12th Air Support Command assailed the performance of the Black pilots. “Officers of all professions,” he said, felt that “the Negro type has not the proper reflexes to make a first-class fighter pilot.”…
The Tuskegee Airmen — “America’s Black Air Force” in WWII The pilots of America’s WWII armed forces were highly skilled flyers who became the stars of war stories and the ingredients of legends. These Black pilots were and are the first line of defense, the protectors of our fleets and the rulers of the skies…
EMPOWER THE PEOPLE, BUILDING ANABOLIC COMMUNITIES THAT ASSUME SOME RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE EDUCATION OF THEIR OFFSPRING Our communities and nation once focused on core values in all areas of life to prepare the youth for service to others and a better future for themselves. Today, that same defining American trait is often used as an…
Who reached the North Pole first? Robert Peary or Matthew Alexander Henson? There is much controversy surrounding who was the first person to reach the North Pole. Normative history books tell us that Admiral Robert Peary was the man who “discovered” the North Pole. Is that accurate? Or did Matthew Henson step foot first on…
Imagine being Black in the 1700s and becoming a self-taught surveyor who played a pivotal role in planning the layout of our nation’s capital. In 1753, at the age of 22, Banneker constructed a striking wooden clock without having ever seen a clock before (although he had examined a pocket watch). He painstakingly carved the…
Musician extraordinaire Lionel Hampton died on August 31, 2002 at the age of 94. His legacy as a musician, statesman, humanitarian and close friend of the Bush family are chronicled on this program. Tony Brown also remembers this music legend’s love for the little guy. HISTORICALLY, TONY BROWN IS also … Coordinator of the “Walk…
In the 100 years between 1700 and the end of the legal slave trade in 1808, Rhode Island monopolized the western Atlantic slave trade. Ships departing from Rhode Island departed on nearly 1,000 voyages to Africa and returned with at least 100,000 slaves. Rum and slaves formed an unholy alliance in Rhode Island, making Rhode…
Slavery could not have become institutionalized in the South without the active participation of northerners in the United States. As the authors argue, the state of Connecticut, and the entire nation, were complicit. This “complicity” took many forms – ownership of slaves, promotion and funding of the slave trade and active involvement in it, support…
TBJ SHOW #829 – PART II: “THE MUSIC TREE:” Rev. Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker, aide to Martin Luther King, Jr., and university scholar, musically demonstrates with a 100-member choir how Black Americans wrote their true history in musical notes and explains how Black music made American music. The music of the Black religious experience is…
