A Hand I Had To Shake

Yesterday one of the apartment communities I manage had a “community day”; it included a yard sale, blood mobile, vendors, face painting, activities for kids, a fire truck, martial arts demonstrations, music, and food. Every year Vickie and I try to make sure we stop by and show our support to the staff.

Shortly after we arrived yesterday, Jennifer, the assistant manager, came over to me and handed me a business card which read, “Tuskegee Airmen, Inc., Howard Baugh Chapter, Howard L. Baugh, President.” She said, “I got Mr. Baugh to come here today, his father was a Tuskegee Airman.” She pointed to a distinguished-looking man in a red jacket (who looks very much like his father in the painting below). I said, “I’ve got to talk to him,” and I headed in his direction. I also wanted to shake his hand.

As I shook Mr. Baugh’s hand I told him that it was an honor to shake the hand of the son of a Tuskegee Airman, and that I admired their courage, not just in battle but in enduring and overcoming the racial harassment and barriers and hatred that they experienced in society and in the U.S. military. Theirs was a unit expected to fail, not to make it through flight training, and certainly not to make it through battle – it was thought that blacks couldn’t learn to fly and that blacks couldn’t stand up to battle, especially battle in the skies. This group of men, both the aviators and ground crew, proved the naysayers wrong with an exclamation point! Known as the Red Tails for their distinctive red markings on the tails of their fighter aircraft, they quickly gained the respect of the Luftwaffe and were in demand as escorts by U.S. bomber groups – white bomber groups wanted to trust their lives to the Tuskegee Airmen.

As Mr. Baugh pointed out to me, the Tuskegee Airmen were among the pioneers of the Civil Rights Movement. The man whose hand I shook, after his own service in the U.S. Air Force, enjoyed a career as a pilot with one of the big U.S. carriers; sadly, when his father – who had defended our country – tried to obtain a pilot’s position with U.S. carriers he was rejected because of his skin color.

When white people say to me that they wish our country would return to “the way it used to be” in terms of prayer in schools and moral values and people going to church – I often ask them if they would say the same thing if they were African – American. I’m not denying that we are in a moral and spiritual mess today, so don’t misunderstand me. But isn’t it also a moral and spiritual mess when our fellow citizens are not treated not only as citizens, but as human beings made in the image of God?

Prayer in schools didn’t eliminate racial hatred – sadly the mix of religion and politics can make us self-righteous and we are all dangerous when we are self-righteous. What kind of morality did we really have when there was segregation and violence…including lynchings and fire bombings and bus burnings? It breaks my heart when I think of the way returning African - American airmen and soldiers and sailors were treated after they had defended our nation in WWII and seen many within their ranks die.

This is why I wanted to shake Mr. Baugh’s hand. It is the only time in my 67 years that I’ve wanted to shake a man’s hand the way I wanted to shake Mr. Baugh’s hand.

Here is a link to the Howard Baugh Chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen

https://www.hbc-tai.org/home.html