Black Knights: The Story of the Tuskegee Airmen

Black Knights: the Story of the Tuskegee Airmen is a concisely written historical account of the struggles faced by young black men during World War II to establish themselves as pilots in the U.S. Army Air Corps, though it leaves something to be desired. The concise details and statistics show an obvious effort to preserve the accuracy of the records kept of the events surrounding the Tuskegee Experience. With that in mind, it should also be noted that when describing certain controversial issues, the authors offer a mostly unbiased perspective. However, certain areas of the book are somewhat lacking. Some elements seem slightly out of place, almost as if they were thrown in solely for the purpose of increasing the bulk of the book. It can be appreciated that the authors took considerable effort to give credit not just to the fliers that saw combat, but also to the entire support structure that gave them that chance. On the other hand, this may have been slightly overdone. Overall, Black Knights is good source of factual history, but is not an overly compelling piece of literature.
The authors, Lynn Homan and Thomas Reilly, wrote this book as a sort of rewrite of a previous work of theirs, The Tuskegee Airmen, with the intention of creating a more complete historical account. Out of respect for the airmen, the Tuskegee Experience is a term used throughout the book in reference to the social experiment that was formulated by the United States War Department to prove that black men could not fly advanced warplanes. Having previously been referred to as the Tuskegee Experiment, the term Tuskegee Experience has been requested by the airmen themselves as an alternative to the former term which has been confused with an unrelated government medical research project, as explained in the preface. This is the ninth book that Homan and Reilly have written together during their time together in which they have traveled across the country giving lectures and organizing museum exhibits on the Tuskegee Experience. Black Knights is simply an extension of their work, intended to present the Experience as a whole.
The first part of the book is a chronological account of how the Tuskegee Airmen came to be. Two distinct views are presented; while blacks were finally being given the chance to fly, there were some who were against the idea of an all-black flight training facility. Besides the obvious racist opponents, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was among those who did not want to see a segregated airfield. The supporters of the idea believed that the young black soldiers would thrive in an environment of their own, kept isolated from the hardships that would be imposed upon them in an integrated military. If segregated, they would not have to be subject to cruelties dealt them by fellow soldiers that would have been detrimental to their morale. Others argued that it only added to the problem of ending segregation and opposed the creation of an all-black airfield on the grounds that separate training facilities and unit organizations would be more costly than an integrated military.
The authors seem to express a slight leaning towards being in agreement with the NAACP's standpoint on the issue, that is, anti-segregation. What they fail to point out, however, is that while segregation is inherently evil, the effect it had actually benefited the outcome of what was to become the Tuskegee Experience. An analogy can be made to illustrate this point. A wall representing racial segregation had to be taken down to make integration possible. If the military integrated black fliers into the white ranks, they would have been subject to unknown cruelties by racist whites and would have had nowhere to turn. One could compare this to attempting to disassemble the aforementioned wall piece-by-piece. On the other hand, as one united, all-black unit, all obstacles in their way were faced by the group as a whole. By having been given the chance to prove themselves in war, they acted as a battering ram to demolish the barrier of segregation. The authors seem to present the arrangement as a failure as far as the battle for integration was concerned; rather, the Tuskegee Experience provided unmistakable proof that black pilots could perform admirably, and effectively paved the way for future desegregation.


Depth of research: 5 stars. Quality of editing: 3 stars.   October 18, 2001
 9 out of 9 found this review helpful

You have to appreciate the amount of effort that went into assembling this book. Even the casually interested reader will finish "Black Knights" with a greater appreciation for the young men who completed the Tuskeegee Experience and went on to serve their country in WWII and beyond. Archival detail is impressive, down to an appendix that offers a roster of all Tuskeegee graduates. Can a future reprint offer the service history of each individual as well?

The book itself presents exhaustive research into the the origins of the program, testimony for and against its development, and records of Tuskeegee-trained airmen in combat and in the post-war USAF. But two-thirds of the way into the book, once the title material is exhausted, it begins a survey of pre-WWII black aviation pioneers. This material is also well-researched, but a bit awkward in its sequence and given the title. Should this have been published as two separate books?

Voluminous research presented the authors with a great challenge: how could all the information be made readable? The authors often succeeded at this task. Note the story of the 99th squadron's first air-to-air kill, and how that is woven back into the discussion of the Army Air Corps' resistance to establishing the squadron in the first place.

This is a good read, if not always compelling. Youth in search of heros need to look beyond the sports and recording industries to discover the Tuskeegee Airmen. Excerpts from this book may provide that introduction.


Good job, could have been better......   August 28, 2001
 8 out of 10 found this review helpful

A mixed bag to me, this book was an ordinary book about an extraordinary subject, those brave black men whose more subtle enemy was the pervasive racism back home. When he authors stick to the stories told about the racial obstacles placed in the "Black Knights" paths in such AAF bases as Alabama, Michigan, and Indiana, a compelling story is told. The Army wanted and expected black fliers to fail, and they not only didn't fail, they were superb soldiers and pilots. But, when the book moves into their combat experiences, the pace of the book slows down, instead using a day-to-day litany of the various units, culled directly from daily unit reports. This section of the book could have used more personal reminiscences from the many old fliers interviewed for the book. It's just page after page of mundane, "flip through" stuff. And the book suffers from spotty editing(Thurgood Marshall never was Chief Justice; the famous and versatile German flak gun was the 88, not the 188, for example). For a better look at combat conditions in the Italian Theater in '44-'45, read Stephen Ambrose's new book "The Wild Blue", about the men who flew the B-24s. Feel the absolute admiration that young B-24 pilot(and future Presidental candidate) George McGovern felt towards the Tuskegee Airmen, who got his crew home safe and sound every time. The excellent last chapter is curiously a history of early black aviation. I would have opened the book with it, rather than closed. The best chapter to me was about the 1945 Freeman Field Mutiny, when over 100 officers risked court martial because they were denied entry to the segregated base Officer's Club; early civil disobedience. The Army, faced with an uncertain outcome to the Japan Theater, backed down eventually. The hero of the book? Colonel Benjamin O. Davis Jr, a superb officer and a great leader.