Black Aviators Deserve Honor at Inauguration

Chauncey Spencer II believes that his father and the organization he helped found should be included and recognized at the Jan. 20 inauguration of Barack Obama. He makes a good case.

His father, the late Chauncey Spencer, is a native of Lynchburg who died in 2002. Chauncey Spencer was many things during his long and productive life that spanned 95 years. He was an aviator and member of the U.S. Army Air Corps. He was a civil rights leader way before that term became popular in the 1950s.

Through it all, he had a deep sense of the meaning of fair play. That made him a thorn in the side of those who cared little or nothing about justice — especially racial justice.

Given the historic nature of the inauguration of America’s first black American president, Spencer has taken up the issue of fair play on his father’s behalf. The swearing-in ceremony will naturally have a civil rights subtext.

Just as importantly, however, is the fact that the Tuskegee Airmen have been invited to the inauguration to be recognized, while members of the National Airmen Association have not. Chauncey Spencer was a charter member of the National Airmen Association, a group of black aviators that led to formation of the Tuskegee Airmen.

“All the living members of the Tuskegee Airmen have been invited and that’s as it should be,” Spencer said last week. “But it was the National Airmen Association that paved the way for the Tuskegee Airmen,” he added. The Tuskegee pilots performed heroically during World War II and became the first to break the color barrier in what was to become the U.S. Air Force.

In a story that has been recounted many times, Spencer and Dale White, a fellow black pilot, flew from Chicago to Washington, D.C., in 1939 to drum up support for black pilots, who had been excluded from military service. That flight attracted the attention of Sen. Harry Truman who told them, “If you had guts enough to fly this thing here from Chicago, I have the guts to see that you do get in the Air Corps.”

The elder Spencer was 37 when the Tuskegee Airmen were formed, which made him eight years too old to fly fighter planes for the military. But he served valiantly as an instructor and mechanic at the training site at Tuskegee University in Alabama.

The son said last week that his father didn’t “believe in dragging his feet when it came to integration. And he suffered for that. In the 1950s he was branded a Communist and had trouble getting a job for two years.”

Spencer II, who lives in Detroit, would like to represent his father and the National Airmen Association at the inauguration in Washington. Michigan Sen. Carl Levin has rejected his request. Spencer sent a second letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who heads up the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. He hasn’t heard back from her.

It probably wouldn’t hurt to get Virginia Sen. Jim Webb involved in the process. He, like the late aviator, has a strong sense of fair play.

Observing that the inauguration “is a time to celebrate and recognize history,” Spencer added, “There were a lot of Martin Luther Kings — people like my father. I will never let his name die, and this is one way to keep it alive.”

Chauncey Spencer was never one to shy away from the public recognition that he so richly deserved. He would be proud of his son’s efforts.

Let’s hope he succeeds in getting the same recognition for the National Airmen’s Association as has been granted the Tuskegee Airmen.