Tuskegee Airman.
So when the Tuskegee Airmen concept came around, it was so mind-blowing to people that people didn't even
first heard about the Tuskegee Airmen.
exemplary as Tuskegee airmen during the Second World War.
Elijah Kelley: Tuskegee Airmen, and he’s gonna mess up my name on live internet.
Male #7: After realizing what the Tuskegee airmen meant and what they did, as you being asked to play a character of the Tuskegee airmen, how did that feel for you?
Obviously, people see the Tuskegee Airmen out in the news.
For people who remember the horrors of the Holocaust or Tuskegee or the eugenics movement,
So he actually became a flight instructor for the Tuskegee Airmen.
What’s been you’re experience around their awareness of the Tuskegee Airmen.
Female #1: How did it feel to be a Tuskegee Airmen?
My remembrance of being at the ranch with a couple of the Tuskegee airmen and we were asking the questions on, “What’d you do here?”
David Oyelowo: And he walked in and Michelle Obama's giving hugs and the real Tuskegee Airmen were there.
And after the screening ended, because all the families of the living Tuskegee Airmen were there, I started asking around to the individuals that made the movie
So who would have actually thought, beyond commanding the Tuskegee Airmen, beyond telling the men to paint the tails red because the maps
Dr. Johnson also has multiple degrees in engineering from Tuskegee University, including two honorary doctorates.
Rick McCallum: I first heard, I never heard of the Tuskegee Airmen until 1989 and George, a very good friend of George Lucas’ had told him the story and, uh, he loved, he loved
Elijah Kelley: But it was one of those experiences that it was genius because they set it up where as the Tuskegee airmen had the same situation, they only had each other.
And that’s another thing that, you know, the Tuskegee Airmen stood for, that was something that resonated all the way from just the mood of who they were to coming on set and knowing
There was really nothing going on with Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. We knew he commanded the Tuskegee Airman.
He was raised by Ben Davis, Jr. He used to run fruit and vegetables back from George Washington Carver in Tuskegee to the soldiers.
And these are two members of the CRW, Charlie Lee and Wilbert Mason, one of whom actually was a Tuskegee Airman, who
As well as I'm learning a lot of other things, I didn't know one of my great uncles was a Tuskegee Airmen.
But if we were to visit the little town of Troy, or visit Montgomery, visit Tuskegee , visit Birmingham, I saw those signs that said white men, colored men,
Paul Snow: So first off, for those that haven’t seen the movie yet, it’s about Tuskegee Airmen, we’d love to hear a little bit about your guys' experience and how you
David Oyelowo: Well for me, personally, my first encounter, uh, of the Tuskegee Airmen was reading the script for Red Tails.
I grew up in a very, very small town called Lagrange Georgia, which is about 45 miles Southeast of Tuskegee .
And one of the biggest problems that took us so long, um, Rick McCallum: for him to actually come up with a way to make it is it was so big cause there was the Tuskegee part, which was
Paul Snow: So these youths, if somebody asked them in a year when did they hear about Tuskegee Airmen, they’ll have a very different answer than what you did at the beginning
Male #1: Uh, I can say that one of the things I find encouraging is that although some of the older generations haven’t heard the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, I think, at
I mean, I grew up in Tennessee, which is not exactly the most forward thinking of places, but even still I remember hearing about the Tuskegee Airmen several times throughout middle