In 1941, the US military designated Tuskegee, Alabama, as the training ground for African-American pilots
Before 1940, black Americans were barred from flying for the military due to the racist belief that they were "inferior" to whites.
The US Army published a study in 1925 called "The Use of Negro Manpower in War," which was later used to support segregation.
Though they were finally able to become US military pilots, black Americans trained in segregated facilities
Tuskegee continued training pilots, navigators, bombardiers, and other maintenance and support personnel
The first class of pilots graduated in March 1942.
The first five pilots to graduate from advanced flying training were Capt. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. and 2nd Lts. Mac Ross, Lemuel R. Custis, Charles H. DeBow, Jr., and George S. Roberts.
Davis was assigned to the base; the others beame the first African-American pilots in the 99th Pursuit Squadron.
The Tuskegee Airmen were highly successful during the war, escorting medium and heavy bombers on missions over Italy and Germany
They also flew air-support missions for ground troops
Members of the 99th Fighter Squadron covered the landings of Allied troops in Licata and Anzio, Italy.
Originally flying out of Tunisia, the pilots later flew out of Sicily before eventually launching missions from mainland Italy
Despite numerous successes in combat, officials still tried to bar the African-American unit from further combat deployments.
White officers in the unit's chain of command wrote memorandums questioning the unit's combat successes and recommended the 99th no longer be deployed for combat missions.
The War Department — now the US Department of Defense — kept the unit in combat but attached it to another command, and perceptions of the unit improved.