During World War II, the Tuskegee Airmen served in segregated air units at home and abroad. In April 1945, even before the war ended, black airmen of the 477th Bombardment Group had protested racial exclusion at the officer’s club at Freeman Field, Indiana. In the postwar years, Benjamin O. Davis Jr. led the all-black 477th Composite Group (later the 332nd Fighter Wing) and took command of Lockbourne Air Base near Columbus, Ohio. Finally, on July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981, which ended the formal policy of segregation in the armed forces. Davis became the first African American general in a newly organized and independent U.S. Air Force in 1954.



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