mchen@heraldsun.com; 419-6636
RALEIGH -- When Harvey Alexander served in the U.S. Air Force from 1942 to 1945, he never saw battle, partly because of the racial segregation in place at the time, but he was proud of his accomplishments as a pilot.
"I was a good pilot, and I knew it," Alexander said in a hangar at Raleigh-Durham International Airport on Saturday.
Alexander, 88, was a Tuskegee Airman, the country's first black military airmen who shattered racial stereotypes during World War II. Although he lives in Greensboro and has trouble breathing because of his pulmonary fibrosis, he spoke at a membership drive hosted by the Heart of Carolina chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen on Saturday.
The chapter celebrates the accomplishments of the Tuskegees, seeking to keep its legacy alive as well as inspire young people who are interested in careers in aviation and aerospace.
The airmen, who became single-engine or multi-engine pilots, were trained at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Tuskegee, Ala. The first aviation cadet class, with 13 pilots, completed training in March 1942. From 1941 through 1946, nine hundred and ninety-four pilots graduated from TAAF.
Saturday's event drew about 20 people to the N.C. Department of Transportation's hangar near the North Cargo area of RDU on Saturday. The crowd sat in front of gleaming twin-engine King Air planes and listened to speakers like Alexander and William McDonald, a Tuskegee Airman living in Durham, while behind them, commercial planes took off from runways.
Blythe Bynum, an 18-year-old freshman astrophysics major at Duke University, was the youngest pilot in attendance. One of her earliest memories was of flying, and she trained for two years for her license.
"It was very inspiring," Bynum said of Alexander's speech. "It's always interesting to hear older peoples' stories."
Alexander grew up in Georgetown, Ill., in the midst of the Great Depression, and said racial prejudice was still strong in his youth.
Although he had the highest grade point average in his high school, he was not made valedictorian. His induction into the Honor Society also was conducted in the principal's office instead of in the auditorium with the rest of the students.
After his time with the Tuskegees, Alexander he couldn't become a commercial pilot because airlines weren't keen on hiring black pilots.
But still, Alexander became an accounting professor and continued to contribute to his community.
By way of advice to young people, Alexander said after the event: "Look upon education as something of value. Everybody has something to contribute. Never give up."
"We want to make sure that this legacy of those who fought the Germans in the skies and fought racism at home never dies," said Theodore Brooks, a past president of the chapter.
