Who Are the Surviving Tuskegee Airmen?
While there is no official listing of the names of the surviving Tuskegee Airmen, information about survivors appears in Tuskegee Airmen newsletters published online. Survivors also attend public events around the country, and their names are sometimes listed in news stories.
Information about surviving Tuskegee Airmen usually becomes available when they make public appearances, which are documented in newsletters, event postings or local and national news stories. Survivor names may be gathered by researching newspapers and magazines at local libraries. An excellent resource is Tuskeegeeairmen.org, which is the website for Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. This organization has nationwide chapters that hold regular meetings, which are attended on occasion by original surviving airmen. A few of the airmen are actively involved in making public appearances at various events involving military service or aviation.
All of the surviving Tuskegee Airmen are members of an elite group of African American pilots who participated in an experimental WWII program. During an era of forced segregation of the military, African American men signed up for the Tuskegee pilot training program at Tuskegee University. The men who passed the program earned a spot on the 99th Pursuit Squadron. Serving under General Benjamin O. Davis, the squadron successfully escorted U.S. military planes through dangerous enemy territory in Europe.
