The U.S. Air Force is announcing the reinstatement of training courses with videos of its storied Tuskegee Airmen. This follows outcry of the military's removal of the materials to comply with the Trump administration's crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives (DEI).
The videos have been shown to Air Force troops as part of DEI courses they took during basic military training.
According to a report from The Air Force Times, the training videos will continue to include segments about the Tuskegee Airmen, but educational materials were being modified to comply with the Trump administration’s ban on DEI.
The Air Force originally halted its basic military training course on “airmindedness” on Jan. 23, which also included removal of media on the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs — the female World War II pilots who were vital in ferrying warplanes for the military.
Over the weekend, U.S. Representative Shomari Figures of Alabama is called for the U.S. Air Force to reinstate training courses with videos of the Tuskegee Airmen.
“The Air Force removing the Tuskegee Airmen from training videos is pathetic, disgraceful, and disrespectful, not only to the brave fighter pilots who saved the U.S. in World War II, but to the City of Tuskegee and the entire State of Alabama," Rep. Figures said in a press statement. "It is a slap in the face of the heroic Black men who risked and gave their lives on the front lines in defense of a country that still made them sit in the back of the bus when they returned home."
The Tuskegee Airmen, known as the “Red Tails” were the nation's first Black military pilots who served in a segregated WWII unit and their all-Black 332nd Fighter Group had one of the lowest loss records of all the bomber escorts in the war.
They flew P-47 Thunderbolt, P-51 Mustang and other fighter aircraft to escort American bombers on dangerous missions over Germany. Before the fighter escorts began accompanying the slow and heavy U.S. bombers, losses were catastrophic due to getting dive-bombed and strafed by German aircraft.
"The Tuskegee Airmen fought for a freedom abroad that they didn't even have at home, and they did it with such a high level of courage, bravery, and skill that they became the most famous fighter pilots in the history of the United States Air Force and the world. They deserve to be honored and restoring this Alabama History should be bipartisan," Rep. Figures continued.
During the previous announcement of the ban last week, in a statement, the Air Force confirmed the courses with those videos had been removed and said it “will fully execute and implement all directives outlined in the Executive Orders issued by the President, ensuring that they are carried out with utmost professionalism, efficiency and in alignment with national security objectives.”
The problem may not be with the historical videos themselves, but that they were used in Air Force basic military training DEI coursework. However, the lack of clearer guidance has sent the Air Force and other agencies scrambling to take the broadest approach to what content is removed to make sure they are in compliance.
In a statement late Saturday, Tuskegee Airmen Inc. the nonprofit foundation created to preserve the legacy of those pilots, said it was “strongly opposed” to the removal of the videos to comply with Trump’s order.
The stories of the Tuskegee Airmen and the WASPs “are an essential part of American history and carried significant weight in the World War II veteran community. We believe the content of these courses does not promote one category of service member or citizen over another. They are simply a part of American military history that all service members should be made aware of,” the group said.
President George W. Bush awarded the Tuskegee Airmen the Congressional Gold Medal in a ceremony at the Capitol Rotunda in 2007.
In 2020, in his State of the Union address, Trump announced he had promoted one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen, Charles McGee, to brigadier general. McGee died in 2022 at age 102.
The WASPs contributed to World War II by learning to fly and ferry new bombers off the assembly lines to airfields where they were needed to ship off to war — freeing up male pilots to focus on combat missions overseas. They earned the right to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery just in the last decade.
The Air Force, like other branches, has recently tried to broaden the number of people they reach to consider military careers like aviation that historically have had few minority service members in their ranks.
