Members of the all-Black Tuskegee Airmen won the Air Force's first Top Gun competition in 1949, but didn't receive recognition for it until recently.
Many years ago, a group of prep basketball players were on a recruiting visit to University of North Carolina. After the business part concluded, most of these teens went off to party. But one young man dropped in unannounced on an older professor at UNC because this Prof had been one of the Tuskegee Airmen and the young man wanted to hear about it first hand. The young man was Rasheed Wallace. Probably can't teach about them now because teaching about racial discrimination makes some white people uncomfortable.
My great nephew is a great basketball player with pretty good academics. He was looking around for a college. His dad, a fellow graduate of Oregon State, and I tried to get him to go there but he didn't want to go there. So, we then suggested University of North Carolina because of the academics and the basketball program but again he said no. We asked him why not repeatedly and finally got his answer from a very heterosexual young man who is so good looking that he had girls calling him. His answer was that North Carolina discriminated against gays and he was opposed to that. I was never more proud of him in my life.
Can't help thinking that professor must have done a double take when a gangly 6'11" kid showed up in his office....
I saw it many years ago and thought it was pretty good. Another story that doesn’t get enough attention is the one about the USS Mason in WWII. It was a destroyer manned by an all black crew. The movie it’s based on (Proud) is still floating around Amazon or Netflix I believe. It’s worth your time if you ever come across it.
Long overdue recognition....at least it didn't get buried forever.....I'm proud to hear this news. I'll have to rewatch that movie.....saw it long, long ago. Japanese american soldiers who fought the Japanese in WWII as americans soldiers also got thrown under the bus by history....to all who served I honor them all.
BTW this is a real-world example of white people changing or erasing history because they didn't like the truth.