More than 60 years ago, when it was thought by many that African-Americans were incapable of piloting airplanes, Vernon Kingsley Sport knew he could.

Mr. Sport enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps after graduating from high school and volunteered repeatedly to fly with the pioneering black aviators who became known as the Tuskegee Airmen. He was turned down several times because he didn’t have a college degree, said his son-in-law Dr. Alfred Wyatt Jr., a Fayetteville dentist.

Congress awards it's top medal, the Congressional Medal of Honor, to two Virgin Islanders who flew with the legendary Tuskegee Airmen. Read more

Wednesday, September 03, 2008
By Randall Clark
rclark@sjnewsco.com
SALEM - In one of the largest funerals the city has seen in recent memory, several hundred people turned out Tuesday to pay their final respects to Tuskegee Airman and city icon William H. Accoo.

In a spiritual tribute, the congregation of friends and family who packed shoulder to shoulder at Mt. Hope United Methodist Church here ensured that their praise and love reached him in the heavens, where they said he soars higher than any plane could ever take him. More

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Lieutenant Colonel Howard Lee Baugh, one of the original Tuskegee Airmen, has died.

Baugh died Saturday at a suburban Richmond hospital after a brief illness. He was 88.

The Prince George County resident enlisted in the Army in 1942 and joined the all-black fighter group that trained at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

DOTHAN, Ala. - Sherman Rose, who served as a flight instructor for the Tuskegee Airmen, has died. He was 88.

Rose died Wednesday at Southeast Alabama Medical Center, according to Sunset Funeral Home.

Gilbert B. Langford, 82, a Tuskegee Airman during World War II who later became an engineer with General Electric and the Defense Department, died of pneumonia July 11 at a hospital in The Villages, Fla. He was a former Alexandria resident.

Mr. Langford, who early on had an interest in flying, trained as a navigator and bombardier with the famed Tuskegee Airmen in 1944. He did not see combat.

Not long after completing additional training in Texas, "the atomic bomb was dropped in Japan, and so here I was, dual-rated, with no war to fight," he said in an oral history interview in 2004.

The young second lieutenant remained in the Army Air Forces for three more years and was a bombardier instructor teaching Chinese cadets and later an assistant weather officer. He also flew B-25s while stationed at Lockbourne Air Base in Ohio, the segregated, all-black base commanded by then-Col. Benjamin O. Davis Jr.

It was an all-star cast of Macon County officials attending the July 29 regular meeting of the Macon County Workforce Investment Network (WIN), presumably there to hear what scheduled Alabama Director of Tourism and Travel Lee Sentell had to say about the county’s tourism potential.

Sentell, though, didn’t show. In his place he sent Francis Smiley, Welcome Center Administrator for the state.

In 2008, Smiley’s been on the roads of Macon County more often than usual as a volunteer helping prepare the area for the grand opening of the new Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site. But this visit she had the ears of the top of the county’s political food chain. Her message?

Macon County needs hospitality training.

Now. More

On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives issued an unprecedented apology to black Americans for the institution of slavery, and the subsequent Jim Crows laws that for years discriminated against blacks as second-class citizens in American society.

Rep. Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Tennessee, drafted the resolution. Cohen explains the apology's long journey for Congressional approval and the significance of its timing. More

Longtime resident remembered for his dedication
By Tim Wightman, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Thursday, July 31, 2008

Members of the Osan Air Base community gathered Tuesday to say farewell to a longtime resident and former Tuskegee airman.

James T. Price died July 20 from injuries suffered in an accidental fall several weeks ago, according to base officials.

EAST HARTFORD, Conn., July 25, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies Corp, in partnership with the Tuskegee Airmen Inc., awarded the 2008 Golden Eagle Scholarship to Mahad Fahieh of Aurora, Colorado. The four-year, $20,000 award, funded by Pratt & Whitney, recognizes a high school senior who has demonstrated aptitude for aerospace technology and aviation.