Advanced Search
Southern Spaces
A journal about real and imagined spaces and places of the US South and their global connections

Tuskegee Airmen: Brett Gadsden Interviews J. Todd Moye

Emory University
Published September 30, 2010

Overview

In an interview with Brett Gadsden at the 2010 Decatur Book Festival, civil rights historian Todd Moye, author of Freedom Flyers, talks about the transformative experiences of the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II and beyond.

Interview

Photographer unknown, Tuskegee Airmen gathered at a U.S. base after a mission in the Mediterranean theater, February 1944. Courtesy of the United States National Archives and Records Administration.
Photographer unknown, Tuskegee Airmen gathered at a U.S. base after a mission in the Mediterranean theater, February 1944. Courtesy of the United States National Archives and Records Administration.

Part 2: Gadsen discusses segregation and the Tuskegee Airmen as well as the NAACP’s efforts to desegregate the military

Part 3: Gadsen explores the significance of Tuskegee as the location for the War Department’s program to train black pilots

Toni Frissell, Tuskegee airmen Woodrow W. Crockett and Edward C. Gleed, Ramitelli, Italy, March 1945. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.   Toni Frissell, Photograph of several Tuskegee airmen attending a briefing in Ramitelli, Italy, March 1945. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.   Toni Frissell, Tuskegee airmen playing cards in the officers' club in the evening, Ramitelli, Italy, 1945. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
         
Toni Frissell, Members of the 332nd Fighter Group in Ramitelli, Italy, March 1945. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.   Toni Frissell, Portrait of Tuskegee airman Edward M. Thomas, standing, Ramitelli, Italy, 1945. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.   Toni Frissell, Col. Benjamin O. Davis, full-length portrait, and Edward C. Gleed, wearing flight gear, standing next to airplane, and looking upward, at air base at Ramitelli, Italy, 1945. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Toni Frissell, Tuskegee airmen Woodrow W. Crockett and Edward C. Gleed (top left), Photograph of several Tuskegee airmen attending a briefing (top center), Tuskegee airmen playing cards in the officers' club in the evening (top right), Members of the 332nd Fighter Group (bottom left), Portrait of Tuskegee airman Edward M. Thomas, standing (bottom center), Col. Benjamin O. Davis, full-length portrait, and Edward C. Gleed, wearing flight gear, standing next to airplane, and looking upward (bottom right), Air base at Ramitelli, Italy, March 1945.  Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

About J. Todd Moye

J. Todd Moye is associate professor of history and director of the oral history program at the University of North Texas. A historian of the American civil rights movement, he directed the National Park Service's Tuskegee Airmen Oral History Project from 2000 to 2005. He is the author of Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II (2010) and Let the People Decide: Black Freedom and White Resistance Movements in Sunflower County, Mississippi, 1945-1986 (2003).

About Brett Gadsden

Brett Gadsden is assistant professor of African American Studies at Emory University. He received his PhD in history from Northwestern University. His book, Victory Without Triumph: School Desegregation in Delaware, is under contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press.

https://doi.org/10.18737/M72K5X