Dear Hannah: LEarning (The Tuskegee Airmen (2-21-2022))

Reach - Then Teach

I don't know a lot about the Tuskegee Airmen. Don't know a lot of details, but now here's what I do know. I know that they were a group of courageous men of color ... who sought to break barriers in a profession ... that constructed a lot of them ... to make sure that pilots were of a certain hue, if you understand what I'm saying. And to overcome those barriers, they had to defeat barriers about intelligence and that means intelligence requirements ... not being able to combine physical, mental strength and courage along with the intelligence and the wherewithal to maintain your orientation when you are turned upside down. I know they overcame all of that. I know that the Tuskegee Airmen went to the Tuskegee Institute, now known as Tuskegee University, and I know that they overcame and they excelled to a degree where they became "the crew" in America's wars fought on other soils. But now I also know that they became a reliable crew in fighting the war that's been waged on American soil for far too long. And that is the war for equality, for equity, for the access to opportunity. And the more important war for access to better circumstances that produce equality and equity.