Sister Tuskegee Airman!

By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.
TriceEdneyWire.com Columnist

I went to see Red Tails, the story of the great Tuskegee Airmen. I encourage everyone to see it. It’s a great story, and I am grateful that George Lucas cared enough to spend nearly $100 million to do the movie. He spent 23 years getting it done. As patient as I am, I fear that I might have given up after so much time and so many financial backers turning him down.

The movie is so powerful and I experienced a range of emotions. I laughed, cried and applauded. It was both sad and funny, serious and playful. It had its “wow” moments. It had its “I can’t believe that!” moments. The one shortcoming was no mention of a Black woman. I kept thinking, “Surely one of these great Black men had a Black woman in his life so that we could have seen a picture on the wall of his barracks or heard a conversation of “the girl back home.” It was as if we didn’t even exist! There was room for a pilot flying hundreds of miles per hour to look down from his airplane and see a woman of another race with whom he falls madly in love.

I thought there had to be at least one of those men who had a Black love interest back home. I found her and wanted everybody to know about her! She’s Mildred Hemmons—later Carter. Hers was an historic love affair with Tuskegee Airman Herbert Carter. They fell in love during Herbert’s Tuskegee cadet training. She was the first female Black pilot in Alabama. He was among the original 33 Tuskegee pilots. Mildred and Herbert got married and remained married for 70 years. The two were known as Tuskegee’s “first couple.”

Mildred and Herbert fell in love when she was just 18 and she had hopes of becoming a military pilot, but racism and sexism kept her from doing so. That didn’t stop her from training to be a pilot. Their courtship was a bit different with the two of them flying their airplanes to meet and fly together since there was little time for dating. Flying their airplanes alongside each other was their idea of a date! They would smile, wave and blow kisses at each other because her airplane had no radio. They said when they flew together it was just like holding hands in midair!

Mildred didn’t allow bigotry to stop her. Even Herbert admits she was the better pilot! She couldn’t go to war but she became the first civilian hired for the Tuskegee air project. She became the first female pilot in the state’s Civil Air Patrol Squadron, but racism and sexism kept her from patrol duty. She tried to join WASP in order to fly for her country, but still no luck. She was named “Miss Tuskegee Army Flying School” and ranked by her instructor among his best pilots. She was the first Black woman in Alabama to earn her pilot’s license, and piloted airplanes until 1985. She went on to mentor Black female fighter pilots.

Seventy years after earning her pilot’s license, she received a letter from the government informing her she had been named a member of the WASPs and given a medal with the inscription: “The First Women in History to Fly America.” She asked her husband why she had been sent that letter. He said, “Because you are a Tuskegee Airman”.

On October 21, 2011, before she slipped away holding the hand of her husband, she made him promise to live until he was 100, and told him she’d be waiting for him. He promised not to let her down.

This article was originally published in the February 13, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper