BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : A TIME LINE IMAGES OF THE TUSKEGEE AIRMEN : BLACK CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE WAR EFFORTS :

Before the Tuskegee Airmen, no African American had been a U.S. Military Pilot. In 1917 African American men had tried to become Ariel observers but were rejected.  African American Eugine Bullard served in the French Air Services during the first world war, because he was not allowed to serve in an American Unit. Instead Bullard returned to infantry duty with the French. The racially motivated rejection of world war one African American recruits sparked over two decades of Advocacy by Africa American who wish to enlist and train as military aviators. The effort was led by such prominent Civil Rights Leaders as Walter White of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Labor Union Leader A. Philips Randolph and Judge William H. Hastie. Finally on 3rd April 1939 Appropriations Bill Public Law 18 was passed by Congress containing an amendment designating funds for training African American Pilots.

The War Department tradition and policy mandated the segregation of African American into separate military units staffed by white officers as have done previously 
with the 9t Cavalry, 10th Cavalry, 24th Infantry Regiment and 25th Infantry Regiment. When the appropriation of funds for aviation training created opportunities for pilot cadets there numbers diminished the rosters of these older units in 1941 the war department and the Army Air Crops under  pressure constituted the first all black  flying unit the 99th Pursuit Squadron

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