by Carr, Firpo
The black officers protested, presenting themselves each day at the white officers’ club until 104 of them were arrested and restricted to their quarters. One black officer, 2nd Lt. Roger Terry, was court-martialed and convicted of assaulting a white officer. It wasn’t until 1995—50 years later—that the U.S. Air Force overturned Terry’s conviction and erased all records of the incident.
Did Higginbotham and the Tuskegee Airmen win their battle again racism and discrimination within the ranks of the American military? Would they collectively be as successful on American soil, so to speak, as they were on German soil?
In the face of such humiliations, the Tuskegee Airmen achieved a goal that outshines even their outstanding war effort. They destroyed forever the racist myth that African Americans couldn’t be effective soldiers. Their achievement made it easier for [then] President Harry Truman to order the racial integration of all U. S. armed forces in 1948.[94]
Another account of the same incident is also of interest. Instead of identifying “April 1945” (as does Massaquoi above), as the time of the debacle, the following more detailed account describes it as having occurred “around March 1945.”
In this account, Mitchell Higginbotham also laments the overall sorrowful situation that prevailed at the time.
Note both what is said about him and the incident. As will be seen, this account provides a few more details:
Higginbotham … [reflected] on the struggle for equality that ruined his chance for a career in the Air Force and stained his military record for 50 years. …
Higginbotham said he is still angry and saddened by the institutionalized racism of the day that limited his opportunities in the military and later in civilian life. …
Around March 1945, the 477th received orders to report to Freeman Field. Higginbotham said the airmen had already heard stories about officers clubs at the base, which were segregated despite a War Department decree against the practice two years earlier. The black club was disparagingly called “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by the Tuskegee Airmen.
Soon after arriving at Freeman, 104 black officers, including Higginbotham, walked into the white club in four groups. Higginbotham and 60 others were arrested.[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡]
The incident was widely reported in the white and black press of the day. Higginbotham still has a copy of the charges leveled against him and the others for “conduct unbecoming an officer, failure to obey a lawful order and breach of good order and discipline.”
Pentagon officials offered to drop the charges if they agreed to stay out of the whites-only club, Higginbotham said.
The 61 defendants rejected the offer and were flown to Godman Field at Ft. Knox, Ky. for courts-martial. …
Fifty-eight airmen, including Higginbotham, received letters of reprimand that were placed in their personnel files. The other three were court-martialed, but only Second Lt. Roger “Bill” Terry was convicted of jostling a white officer.
In 1995, the Air Force cleared all of the airmen, threw out Terry’s conviction and returned his $150 fine. An Air Force official called the wartime action against the Tuskegee Airmen “a terrible wrong in the annals of U.S. military history.”
For Higginbotham and the others, the Air Force’s righting of the injustice done to them offered little solace.
“Our lives had already been screwed. Many of us were bright, intelligent guys who could have served our country well in Air Force careers. But the reprimands and courts-martial made it impossible for us to advance,” Higginbotham said.[95]
One of the ironies of the practice of racism and discrimination is that the perpetrators often have mixed feelings about the victims.
Europe and the celestial realm were havens that the Airmen and other military personnel escaped to for solace. Sometimes Europe failed them, leaving them to reach for the stars as their sole place of refuge and some modicum of peace of mind.
But, as is reflected in the age-old cliché, “what goes up must come down.” Indeed, reality brought them back down to earth.
And, even though some Black military personnel stayed, most would have to eventually return home from Europe. And here at home in the United States, racism’s ugly head was waiting patiently to stare them in the face as the following accounts bear out.
Matters improved sometimes after the men were sent overseas. Europeans in Allied-occupied territories showed little or none of the prejudice the airmen were accustomed to at home.
“After you got overseas, you realized what it meant, really, to be free and to be accepted,” said Ted Lumpkin, a former intelligence officer for the 100th Fighter Squadron who lives in Inglewood. “But after the (white) Americans got there, you could feel the difference.”[96]
The fliers’ treatment could be even worse off-base, said Oliver Goodall, who flew with the 477th Bombardment Group, an all-black bomber unit.
“They’d tell you to get back across the tracks,” said Goodall, who lives in Altadena. “It didn’t matter that you were an officer in uniform. They would refuse you service in restaurants. In the first place, they didn’t believe you were an officer. You could have wings on and they’d say, ‘No, no. No black man flies an airplane.’”[97]
But on the ground, they were patronized, shunned, even hated. They were turned out of hotels and restaurants, harassed by local police and taunted by nearby residents whose eyes never looked past their black faces to see the wings on their chests[98]
Tragically, there was nothing that the Sky Masters could do to win the respect of their fellow Americans, yes, the very ones they were willing to put their lives on the line for. And getting a job was another nightmare waiting in the wings.
“Since the Eurocentric American system had no love for African Americans,” observes Stanley[§§§§§§§], a Black man, “it was quite unlikely that victorious Tuskegee Airmen would get jobs as commercial pilots upon returning to America.”
Heroic Tuskegee Airman
Looking For Work
It was a search destined for fruitlessness. Bravely, the Black Birdman dared to look for a job as, well, of all things—pilots. The audacity. Who did these Black men think they were to actually seek employment as pilots?
No, as it turns out, no one was about to hire a wildly successful, highly skilled Tuskegee Airman as a commercial pilot.
And why not? Easy. He was still Black! So, those pilot jobs went to, well, one guess. Yes, as one may have surmised, to the Airmen’s less skillful White counterparts.
After the war, returning pilots were gobbled up by U.S. air carriers, but [Mitchell] Higginbotham’s dream of becoming an airline pilot were doused because of his skin color.
Instead, he went home to Sewickley, Pa., determined not to end up in the steel mill with his father. He got a job at Pittsburgh Airport. Along the way, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in labor relations and ended up in Los Angeles in 1956, where he worked as a county probation officer for 30 years before retiring.[99]
Still, it would be years before similar color barriers eroded in civilian life. Mitch Higginbotham, a B-25 pilot and one of the 101 officers who refused to sign the segregation statements at Freeman Field, hoped to become an airline pilot after the war.
“But all those hopes and dreams crashed when I found out they still weren’t accepting black pilots in civilian aviation,” he said. He eventually found a position as a Los Angeles County probation officer. He is retired today and lives in Inglewood.
All those amazing skills and all that expensive training went right down the drain. But, fortunately, not the determination and perseverance that was an earmark of the Tuskegee Airman as demonstrated by Higginbotham’s pursuit of a higher education.
His was not the only success story. Many aspired to greater heights in an effort to show the world—and American society in particular—that they, both as a group and individually, could overcome any obstacle placed before them, and even excel in doing so.
Many of the Tuskegee Airmen went on to
distinguished careers. Benjamin O. Davis became a three-star general, only two ranks below the Army’s highest rank. Former Detroit Mayor Coleman Young was a Tuskegee Airman, as was New York City politician and businessman Percy Sutton.[100]
Yes, “many … went on to distinguished careers.” This should not be hard to believe since many of them, as was noted previously, were already very well educated. But, just how many of them are alive today?
This would be difficult to tally at this point. But, what if this question was posed about twenty years ago?
Tuskegee Airmen Census
—a Brief Review
How many of the Tuskegee Airmen are alive today is anyone’s guess. To the present author’s best knowledge, a formal census has not been conducted in recent years.
However, this was not the case some twenty or so years ago. Back then, what the number of surviving Tuskegee Airmen at the time was apparently a question that was anticipated by the writer of the following article, which also provides us with a review of the daring exploits of the Black Sky Masters:
There are more than 2,300 Tuskegee Airmen still living throughout the country [at the time the article was printed], and the 143-member [at the time of this printing] Los Angeles chapter of their unique veterans’ organization will be honored Saturday and Sunday at Van Nuys Airport’s Aviation Expo-90 “Salute to the Pilots of World War II.”
The story of the Tuskegee Airmen (so called because they all trained at the Tuskegee, Ala., Air Field) is a story of men with a special mission. Committed not only to winning a war, these pilots also were in the air to prove “that black men could fly airplanes,” as one of them put it.
According to the history books[?], they flew brilliantly. But more significantly, they were among the vanguard of black servicemen who not only raised the status of black military personnel from menial enlisted jobs to the corps of officers, but played a key role in destroying the American military’s segregation policies.
Until 1939, the Army Air Corps (later to become the U. S. Air Force) refused to accept blacks into its ranks, and it took an act of Congress to change that policy.
As a result of that legislation, a training base specifically for black pilots and support crews was established at Tuskegee near the famous black college, Tuskegee Institute.[101]
Our lesson on the Tuskegee Airmen is one that will no doubt resonate in the minds and hearts of many people who appreciate the old proverb which states: “Have you beheld a man skillful in his work? Before kings is where he will station himself.”—Proverbs 22:29, New World Translation.
Shockingly, while the Tuskegee Airmen were battling victoriously in the German skies above, the Nazis were slaughtering innocent Black men, women, and children on the ground below.
Chapter Four
Nazi Horrors Against Defenseless
Black German Citizens
“Even though blacks did not need to wear yellow stars like the Jews or pinks triangles like homosexuals, Hitler reckoned their color was
the ‘biggest patch they can carry.’
Many were to die doing forced
labor, and many more
disappeared in concen-
tration camps.”[102]
—Anonymous
“Order of Battle,” is an expression defined in the dictionary as, “the identification, command structure, strength, and disposition of personnel, equipment, and units of an armed force.”—The American Heritage College Dictionary—Third Edition.
While one might be hard pressed to find official documentation, or Order of Battle, indicating that all Black Germans—or all Blacks period—should be eliminated, a de facto or unwritten law clearly sent this message.
Historians can clearly identify a “command structure” and the “disposition of personnel, equipment, and units of the [Nazi] armed forces” that specifically targeted Blacks.
Besides, there is a pile of dead bodies and souls scarred for life that prove official documentation was not needed to carry out all manner of atrocities. Yes, Hitler waged war, even against Germany’s own defenseless Black citizens.
Perhaps the chapter title should really read, “Some of the Nazi Horrors Against Defenseless Black German Citizens,” because we may never know of all the atrocities committed, sanctioned, or endorsed by Hitler.
Dating back to the time of colonial Germany, in the foregone days of the Herero, Nama, Damara, and others, different African ethnic groups were viewed under the same myopic German lens.
In the African colonies the racial structures had basically two dimensions: black and white. However, African Blacks there had never thought of themselves as belonging to a single Black race but in fact identified with their individual tribes.[103]
As all Blacks having anything to do with Hitler’s Germany would find out, how they saw themselves was of little consequence. It was how Hitler viewed them that mattered!
Since Hitler viewed all Blacks as being “inferior,” he had no problem having them carted off to forced labor and concentrations camps—by the thousands!
Certainly, the Jews bore the brunt of his racial policies. But as Hitler went about ridding the world of the Jews and other “inferior” beings, blacks were caught up in the encroaching genocide, and were not spared. Thousands were carried off to the endless nightmare of the forced labor and concentration camps.[104]
It is no doubt difficult for a rational being to imagine a predominantly White country wherein Black people are accosted, terrorized, and then herded away to be tortured, then executed. Why? Simply for being Black.
As has been well documented up till now, this is precisely what happened to Blacks in Germany. This chapter aptly opened with yet another little-known fact that may well shock the sensibilities—yet again—of any sane person.
Survivors say that daily fascist terrorism against blacks were rampant and commonplace. Even though blacks did not need to wear yellow stars like the Jews or pinks triangles like homosexuals, Hitler reckoned their color was the “biggest patch they can carry.” Many were to die doing forced labor, and many more disappeared in concentration camps.[105]
While atrocities were visited upon Jews, homosexuals and others, Blacks, because of their skin color, could not blend in (as could everyone else); nor hide or deny their obvious heritage; nor become Nazi collaborators as did some Jews and homosexuals. Blacks were sought out for either incarceration or death—or both.
But, prior to the advent of National Socialism, all was well with Germany’s Black citizens. Would Germany now treat these Black citizens so brutally?
Did Hitler See Blacks As Citizens?
In reality, the expression “Black German Citizen” was, as will be shown, a self-contradiction as far as Hitler was concerned.
And, as was always the case, Blacks were singled out, not only to be stripped of their citizenship, but, also, to be lynched, as were Black Africans in colonial Germany’s South-West Africa several decades before.
The reign of terror and bloodshed destroyed many families and scattered many more communities. For the blacks, this dislocation was compounded by the fact that they were stripped of their German nationality and their passports confiscated. This limited their mobility, and even their escape. Lynching[********] is rumored to have become commonplace after the Nuremberg laws were passed. Among other things, this law made inter-racial liaisons a serious crime.[106]
So now, if a Black person was born and raised in Germany; had acquired an education in German schools; had a number of Afro-German relatives in the country (and probably even White ones); spoke fluent German and was around during World War II, he still stood a very good chance of being executed. And, sadly, many were.
[Hans Massaquoi describes himself as] someone who had a brown complexion [with] black, kinky hair [and] spoke accent-free German [as well as] claimed Germany as his place of birth.[107]
Yet, as is clearly reflected in Massaquoi’s book, Destined to Witness, he states unequivocally that he was maltreated,
looked down upon, and spoken to condescendingly. He was no doubtlessly traumatized in other ways under the horrific Nazi system.
The fact is, Nazi ideology made no room for the oxymoronic, paradoxical, self-contradicting phrase, “Afro-German.” That is tantamount to saying, “A seven-foot midget.” A non sequitur for a certainty!
And while one might initially surmise that at least being born and raised in Germany, and speaking fluent German would have had some leverage with the Nazis irrespective of the color of one’s skin, one would be terribly wrong as demonstrated in the case of Massaquoi. Stunningly, Hitler made this point even clearer.
But it is a scarcely conceivable fallacy of thought to believe that a Negro or a Chinese, let us say, will turn into a German because he learns German and is willing to speak the German language in the future and perhaps even give his vote to a German political party. … [S]uch Germanization is in reality a de-Germanization.[108]
And some of the ones who managed to avoid execution for one reason or another, still lived in constant fear of being discovered, regardless of the fact that they spoke in their native tongue, German.
The one-time Black German citizen was now dead— lynched just like his brothers of African descent in the United States of America, from which the Germans no doubt got the idea as is reflected in cartoons that appeared in German newspapers during the Second Great War as has been documented herewith.[109]
This dehumanization made sense to Hitler. His distressingly convoluted reasoning could be summarized thusly: “If there is no such thing as an Afro-German citizen, then, how could you commit an atrocity against something that is nonexistent?”
Note what he mockingly wrote about Black people, as well as others, regarding any alleged German citizenry that some might have fantasized about:
