Every year, Ford Motor Co. designs a one-of-a-kind Mustang to auction at EAA AirVenture. For 2012, Ford has created a “Red Tails Edition” Mustang to honor the famous Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American aviators in the United States Army Air Corps. This special Mustang will be auctioned off on Thursday, July 26, to benefit the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Young Eagles Program.
Today a pilot slot in the United States military is open to all races, but it was not so long ago that was not the case. The United States military dismissed African Americans as inferior human beings and assumed they were ill-equipped to be pilots.
During World War II the Tuskegee Experiment, as it was known, disproved this assumption. Young men of color from all over the United States were taught to fly for Uncle Sam. The new George Lucas movie “Red Tails” tells the story of the Tuskegee Airmen.