Monday, March 2, 2009

Dead Page-- Tuskegee Airman

AUGUSTUS PALMER 1923-2009

Tuskegee Airman lived to see inaugural of 1st black president


Died January 20th. Was one of the last of almost 1000 recruits accepted into the US Army Air Force training program for black pilots in 1945.

After the war, Mr. Palmer worked in the administrations at Hampton University, Texas Southern University and Howard University. All of these are historical black universities.

Even with his health failing, he went to the polls Nov. 4th to vote for Obama and would have liked to have gone to the inauguration with the other Tuskegee Airmen, but his health was too bad.

One of his favorite stories was an incident during the war where he and other Tuskegee Airmen were denied entrance to an officer's club after stopping at an all-white base to refuel. "The white officers wouldn't let them in. They had never heard of a black officer," said his son Robert. "Once the planes were refueled, my father and the other black pilots got in their planes and they left. But as they did, they turned around and buzzed the tower."

The Greatest Generation.

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