Capt. Julian H. Johnson was honored by the Chicago White Sox on 8-24-13 as the team’s “Hero of the Game”. This game was significant as it was also the annual “Civil Rights Game” which honors America’s civil rights pioneers. Along with the Tuskegee Airmen, cialis 40mg the Montford Pointe Marines, the Triple Nickel, the 761st Tank Battalion (“The Black Panthers”), the Transportation Corps known as the “Red Ball Express” and numerous other under recognized service men and women helped ensure that America and her allies would prevail during WWII.
The Tuskegee Airmen (“Red Tails”), like Capt. Johnson were both civil rights pioneers as well as America’s first military aviators. Prior to Jackie Robinson’s integration of Major League Baseball, prior to Rosa Parks courageous stand leading to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and culminating in the integration of Montgomery’s bus system, the Tuskegee Airmen, fought racism both at home and overseas. A little known aspect of civil rights history Involves the story of how a group of Tuskegee airmen, by refusing to live in segregated quarters, triggered one of the most significant judicial proceedings in U.S. military history.
For more information, read THE FREEMAN FIELD MUTINY by Original Tuskegee Airman Lt. Col James C. Warren. LTC Warren provides a documented description of the courageous stand taken by the 477th Bombardment Group for civil rights within the military that occurred at Freeman Field, Seymour, Indiana, on April 5, 1945.
