Passing Along The Tuskegee Legacy

If you want to sum up John Chuck Gay's philosophy in one sentence, this might just do it:

"No one can make you feel inferior without your permission."

Even aficionados of the famed Tuskegee Airmen may not know Gay. He describes himself as being in the second wave of black military pilots -- the one right after those who flew the red-tailed P-47s and P-51s that came to be so revered by the European bomber crews they escorted during World War II. Serving in the USAF from the 1950s until the 1970s, Gay spoke over the weekend at Broward County Community College in Pembroke Pines, FL, where scores of people gathered for the Aviation Institute's Wings and Wheels open house.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel quotes Gay as he traced the history of blacks in the cockpit.

"In 1925, the War Department issued a report," he said in prepared remarks. The report found that blacks "did not have the dexterity or the mental capacity to fly airplanes," he said.

Little could be farther from the truth. Overcoming prejudice and the constant need to prove themselves again and again in combat, the story of men like Gay who fought alongside pilots of other races was boiled down to this:

"To get a promotion or an assignment, you still had to be three times better than the other guy."

Now retired from the Air Force and a post-military career as an L1011 pilot for Eastern Airlines, Gay says he has a new mission: make sure the Tuskegee Airmen are never forgotten and to promote careers in aviation among people of all races.

FMI: www.broward.edu/locations/south/aviation