Wonkette Movie Night: The Tuskegee Airmen
'Every colored pilot in the 99th went through his own private hell to wear those wings.'
As we go into Memorial Day the battles against the Nazis of World War II seem to stand out more than others as we seem to be fighting them again.
The Tuskegee Airmen is the dramatized telling of the stories of the men of the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group when the U.S. military was segregated.
Not only did they fight Nazis but they also fought racism just to have that opportunity. The young cadets of what would become the 99th Pursuit Squadron learn to pilot the fighter planes that will protect the B-17 bombers. The men put their lives on the line for a country that hasn’t shown them much respect, but they fight for what is right. As pilot Hannibal Lee watches a Nazi plane go down in flames he says,
“Give my regards to Der Fuhrer.”
After the war, Executive Order 9981 was signed by President Harry S. Truman on July 26, 1948. It stated,
"It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale."
In September of 1947 The U.S. Armed Air Service became the Air Force and officially integrated, influenced by the success of the Tuskegee Airmen.
In November of 1943, the U.S. Navy launched the USS Mason DE-529, a destroyer escort and the USS PC-1264, a sub chaser, both having a nearly all Black crew. These two ships were created when President Roosevelt received a letter from the NAACP in 1941, after the attacks on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Navy officially integrated in February of 1946 with Circular Order 48-46.
The Army Nurse Corps accepted Black nurses in 1941 after Eleanor Roosevelt and the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses made their voices heard.
The U.S. Army waited till 1954 to officially integrate the troops.
The U.S. Marine Corps was not fully integrated until 1960.
Then in the spring of 2025, the Trump administration’s attempt to purge “DEI” from every part of the government resulted in a Pentagon purge of photos of the Tuskegee Airmen from several of its websites, as well as the memory-holing of pages on the Navajo Code Talkers and even Jackie Robinson. After outraging everyone with a lick of sense, the Pentagon finally restored most of the deleted pages.
This short video from The National Veterans Memorial and Museum has photos of the real Tuskegee airmen.
The Tuskegee Airmen stars Laurence Fishburne, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Andre Braugher, Courtney B. Vance, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, John Lithgow, Vivica A. Fox, Allen Payne, Mekhi Phifer and Christopher McDonald. Directed by Robert Markowitz.
The Tuskegee Airmen is available with subscription on Max and Sling TV. $3.99 in the usual places.
To make requests and see the movie lists and schedules go to WonkMovie.
The animated short is Mime Your Manners by Kate Namowicz & Skyler Porras.
Our next Movie Night selection is The Sandlot and it is available with subscription on Disney+. $3.99 in the usual places.
Thanks everyone! Next week is 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐨𝐭. With the following week being Clueless. Then the next movie night will be The Maltese Falcon which I will be doing from Cleveland!
𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐔𝐒 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐀:
The character Lewis Johns (Mekhi Phifer) recites "Strange Fruit" to his fellow recruits to describe lynchings in the South in the first half of the 20th century. "Strange Fruit" was written by Abel Meeropol and recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939. Meeropol was a Jewish teacher in The Bronx in 1936, wrting under the pen name of Lewis Allen, after he witnessed the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana, in that year.