“The mission is to really use the Tuskegee Airmen legacy to inspire youth towards aviation and aerospace careers,” said Glendon Fraser of RedTail Flying Academy.
Mya Coley is a pilot in training. For this young Black woman, this opportunity is truly a dream come true, and a chance for her to break racial and gender barriers.
“It’s always been that intimidation of, for me, Black women can’t fly, or Black women won’t be able to take on this challenge. And that was the motivation for me,” Coley told CBS News.
According to the US Department of Labor, 94% of commercial pilots and flight engineers are white, 3.4% are Black, 5% are Latinx and 2.2% are Asian.
Female pilots make up only 5.6% of the total, with less than 1% of that number being Black women. That means in the United States, fewer than 150 Black women fly through the skies professionally.
Coley is a member of the RedTail Flying Academy, a non-profit organization inspired by the legendary Tuskegee Airmen and whose mission is to diversify the pool of commercial pilots.
“The mission is to really use the Tuskegee Airmen legacy to inspire youth towards aviation and aerospace careers,” said Glendon Fraser of RedTail Flying Academy.
Part of RedTail Flying Academy’s goal is to develop a pipeline of aviators from underserved communities, starting with flight training, which can cost upwards of $100,000.
Flight student Traye Jackson, 21, said he always had dreams of becoming a pilot and getting his private pilot’s license. He describes the experience as "great" and one that he is grateful for.
“I literally prayed for something exactly like this program,” Jackson said.
From 1941 to 1946, about 1,000 Black pilots were trained at what was known then as the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. They formed the all-Black 332nd Fighter Group, lauded for escorting bombers during World War II and having one of the lowest loss records of all the escort fighter groups.
The RedTails, as the Tuskegee Airmen were known during WWII, fought against segregation and Jim Crow laws in the United States as they fought Nazis and the Axis powers overseas.
Herbert Clemson, a graduate of the RedTails Flying Academy, said “this is not just Black history, it’s America’s history.”
“This history should not be lost because there is no one to tell the story,” Clemson said.
Anne Palmer, a RedTails Flight Academy board member and daughter of one of the original Tuskegee Airmen, 2nd Lt. Augustus L. Palmer, agreed, telling CBS News that “there's nothing greater than to see what your ancestors stood for, actually honored and perpetuated.”
Both Coley and Jackson are excited for what their future in aviation and aerospace holds.
”I think that they would definitely say we are following in their footsteps and really just trying to push the bar even higher each and every time,” Jackson said.
