Eugene Bullard is the acknowledged first African American military pilot, although he flew for the French flying service not the U.S. Because Bullard is such a highly unusual biographical figure, historians have somewhat overlooked his unsuccessful attempt to enter the U.S. Army Air Service in 1917. This was a significant event in the struggle for equal rights in American military aviation. Although it had existed for a long time, institutional racism in the military was formalized by an October 1925 report prepared for the Army chief of staff, titled “The Use of Negro Manpower in War.” This statement denigrated African American men morally and intellectually. Thus, no African-Americans were admitted to the Army Air Service-Air Corps during the interwar years. The color line was broken in 1939, when Public Law 18 was passed, with a provision for training African American men as pilots. The segregated 99th Fighter Squadron, formed in March 1941, nearly a quarter-century after Bullard’s attempt, was the first all African American unit in American military aviation. It was not until 1948 that President Harry S Truman issued Executive Order 9981 that the U.S. military was finally integrated.
The Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight Gallery, located in the National Mall building, is an exhibition about the growth and influence of aviation and rocketry during the 1920s and 1930s. The fully-renovated gallery will open to the public Nov. 19, 2010.
Aircraft in this image: the Douglas World Cruiser "Chicago," the Curtiss R3C-2 Racer, the Fokker T-2, Amelia Earhart's Lockheed 5B Vega and the Lindberghs' Lockheed 8 Sirius "Tingmissartoq."