From Tuskegee to Space Force
Artist: Clifford Darrett
Medium: Oil Painting on Canvas Dimensions: 37.5” x 31.5” Price: $2,500
This painting represents the brave African American airmen that fought in World War II, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and Afghanistan
The Fight for the Right to Fight
March 7, 1942, in Alabama at Tuskegee Army Air Field’s lone runway, young black pilots stood at attention in a graduation exercise that induced them into the Army Air Corps (later called the United States Air Force). These brave fighter pilots would go on to prove themselves in Sicily, Southern France, the Balkans and Germany. They would protect the bombers, they escorted and they never lost a bomber, they were called the Red Tails because their planes would have their tails painted red. They flew P-47s and Spitfires.
Thanks to the Tuskegee Airmen/Airwomen (pilots, engineers, mechanics, supply clerks, navigators etc.) who generated the Civil Rights movement for equality, the United States of America can now boast of individuals like General Benjamin O. Davis Jr., Admiral Samuel L. Gravely, Secretary of the Army, Clifford Alexander, Astronauts Buford, McNair, Gregory and Bolden, and General Colin L. Powell.