Riverdale's Red Tail immortalized

Roscoe C. Brown Jr. knew he wanted to fly when he was 6 years old.

He got that chance in 1941, as a 19-year-old in Tuskegee, Ala. 

He flew missions in World War II, shot down German fighter planes and, decades later, in 2007, he received the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor for his accomplishments. He was one of approximately 300 black WWII pilots who became known as Tuskegee Airmen. 

The longtime Riverdalian, former president of Bronx Community College and current director of the Center for Urban Education Policy at CUNY’s Graduate School and University Center now has a place in Hollywood, too. In January, the Tuskegee Airmen finally made their debut on the silver screen. 

Red Tails, produced by George Lucas, is the story of  black pilots’ double victory over the Germans, as well as racism from their peers in the military. 

Mr. Brown served as a consultant for the film, talking to Mr. Lucas, writers and actors about his experience as an African-American who wanted to fly.

His story began in April 1928.

Every Sunday, Mr. Brown’s parents would take him and his sister to the Smithsonian Museum, in his native Washington, D.C.

Unlike restaurants, theaters and other attractions, the federally funded museums were not segregated. And the Browns were regulars.

A year after Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly an airplane across the Atlantic Ocean, Mr. Brown walked into the museum and saw Mr. Lindbergh’s famous plane.

“I saw the Spirit of St. Louis hanging in the sky, hanging from the ceiling. That caused me to say, ‘How could he do that? That’s something that I’d like to do,’” he said on Feb. 22, during one of his many talks since Red Tails opened, to a Riverdale Country School auditorium filled with middle school students.

Mr. Brown said he soon became aware of a white pilot named Roscoe Turner, from Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. Turner flew with a lion cub in his plane and was gaining recognition as one of the best racing pilots in the country.

For Mr. Brown, that was it. He shared Mr. Turner’s name and knew that he could fly, too.

But how would he learn? 

The military, one of the only places to study, would not train blacks in flight. 

When the U.S. entered World War II, black newspapers and civil rights organizations pressured the military to train black pilots. In 1941, the military lifted its ban and built an airbase specifically for blacks in Tuskegee, Ala.

“To show how silly things were at that time, the government spent over $1 million to build a separate airbase to train the black pilots because they didn’t want them to train with the white pilots,” Mr. Brown said.

Tuskegee was a fitting place. It was in that same town Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee University, where African-American pioneer George Washington Carver honed his agricultural expertise.

In 1941, Mr. Brown began training with a small Piper Cub plane at Tuskegee, before graduating to the larger P-17 biplane and shipping with the rest of the Tuskegee airmen across the Atlantic. 

They were stationed in Italy.  Mr. Brown was commander of the 100th Fighter Squadron of the 332nd Fighter Group.

He flew 68 missions in a P-51 Mustang (what he calls “racing car fighter planes”), shot two fighters, including one jet, out of the sky, destroyed three fighters on the ground and blew up 13 locomotives in ground attack missions. 

The all-black Tuskegee Airmen gained a reputation as the finest bomber escort group in the U.S. Air Force because they would stick close to the bombers, even when under attack from German fighter planes.

Before long, the white bomber pilots began referring to the Airmen, who had adorned their silver P-51 Mustangs with bright red tailfins, as their “Red-Tail Angels.”

“We protected them because it was our job,” Mr. Brown said humbly.

The events of March 24, 1945, inspired the final scene in Red Tails. Mr. Brown led his squadron of 16 planes to Berlin, on a mission to destroy a tank factory. German jets, the first military jets in the world, approached the bombers and their red-tailed escorts.

“I said drop your tanks and follow me. I turned the plane upside down, as you saw in the movie, went down under the bombers, made a hard right turn, caught the jet in my gun sight, brrrrrr-boom, right in the middle, blew him up, first jet that was shot down in the war over Berlin. That’s what we did on March 24, 1945,” he said to the RCS middle school students. 

They  exploded with applause, cutting Mr. Brown short.

“… and because of that, the Tuskegee airmen have gone into history,” he continued when the applause finally died down.

One of their most high-profile appearances in recent years came in 2009. President Barack Obama invited the surviving airmen to his inauguration.

With the release of the film, (which he says “adheres pretty closely to what actually happened”) Mr. Brown was honored at the BET Awards and, a few weeks ago, he and other airmen met with Michelle Obama at the White House. Mr. Obama also dropped in on the meeting.  

Mr. Brown said he sees a connection between what he did during World War II and what Mr. Obama has accomplished. 

“We feel, as Tuskegee airmen, that we did what we should have done, defended our country, showed that excellence comes in all sizes, shapes and colors, that African-Americans could be excellent and because of that, [President Harry Truman’s] recognized that segregation … was wrong, it was inefficient and it had to be stopped,” he said.

Mr. Brown notes that Mr. Truman decided to end segregation in the Army in 1948, precededing Brown vs. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act.

At the RCS assembly last week, he told the children there were still battles to be won.

“You too have the opportunity to bring change to society. Whereas I can proudly say how much progress we have made, I can also say how much progress we have yet to make,” he said.

After the war, Mr. Brown earned a Ph.D. and began a long career in education that continues today. 

In 1973, the Tuskegee Airmen formed an organization that has met every year since, and which has brought more attention to what they did in “The Big One.”

The organization created a foundation for minorities and low-income students to pursue careers in aviation or technology. 

These days, Mr. Brown said when he walks around Riverdale in his replica bomber jacket (he doesn’t wear the real one), people come up and thank him.

And now, when the 89-year old goes to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. to check out the old Spirit of St. Louis, he can swing by an exhibit featuring fighter pilots from World War II, including a picture of his red-tailed P-51 Mustang.