National Affairs: As Jim Crow Flies

Last week the U. S. Army opened its. Air Corps to Negroes. It was a tiny opening (one squadron, the 99th pursuit), but an opening it was. Thirty-three Negro pilots, 276 ground men for the squadron will get their initial training at Chanute Field, Ill., and at a new field at Tuskegee, Ala., hard by famed Tuskegee Institute. White officers will train the first batch of fliers, may later give way to colored instructors as Negro graduates get their wings and commissions as second lieutenants.

Smart, quiet Judge William Henry Hastie, dean of Howard University School of Law in Washington, who is Secretary of War Stimson’s adviser on Negro affairs, engineered the formation of the 99th. Many Negroes applauded his feat, but many squawked. Their complaint: segregation of the 99th. Until Negro cadets went to the same air schools, joined the same squadrons that white fliers did, these fighters for race equality would consider it a Jim Crow Air Corps.