Major Carrol Woods, a Tuskegee Airman and former Prisoner of War spoke to one of our research seminars today, and I was fortunate to be able to listen.\u00a0 Major Woods presented a matter-of-fact commentary on his experiences growing up on the farm near Valdosta, Georgia.\u00a0 He talked about his early years in the Army and how he earned the right to compete for his flying wings.\u00a0 His class started with 63 cadets.\u00a0 When they graduated, there were 22–and he was one.\u00a0 He was proud to earn his wings.<\/p>\n
Major Woods downplays his role in history.\u00a0 When asked if he knew what kind of history he was making, he said no.\u00a0 He was having fun and enjoying flying.\u00a0 He did mention a few hair-raising flights where he said he wasn’t flying the plane; other people think he’s joking when he says that, but he maintains he’s serious.\u00a0 I believe him.\u00a0 Sometimes, you come through situations you just wouldn’t have made it through on your own, and you accept a higher power took over.<\/p>\n
He’s very low-key about the effect segregation had on him.\u00a0 He said his parents raised him to know how to cope with it–much as I believe black parents still raise their children to know how to handle various situations.<\/p>\n
To catch a glimpse of how it affected him, I had to read between the lines.\u00a0 The first instance was when he related how things were when he was returning to the United States after his Prisoner of War experience.\u00a0 Everyone was together on the boats and on the train to DC, yet when they arrived in DC, the blacks went to their separate rail cars, and the whites went to theirs.<\/p>\n
The other instance was clearer, and it’s the thing that always bothers me.\u00a0 Black men fought for this country and its freedom.\u00a0 Some died.\u00a0 Some were maimed, and some were taken Prisoner of War, yet they were considered second class citizens and unworthy of full citizenship.\u00a0 Major Woods said we’ve come a long way from those days–night and day, but still, when men fought for their country and weren’t…<\/p>\n
This is where the audience knew the depth of Major Woods’ feelings for what transpired in this country’s past, and, I suspect, to some extent what happens today.\u00a0 Whenever he can, he shares his experience with military and school groups.\u00a0 We’re losing more Tuskegee Airmen every day.\u00a0 I feel fortunate I’ve been able to meet and hear the stories of five so far in my career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Major Carrol Woods, a Tuskegee Airman and former Prisoner of War spoke to one of our research seminars today, and I was fortunate to be able to listen.\u00a0 Major Woods presented a matter-of-fact commentary on his experiences growing up on the farm near Valdosta, Georgia.\u00a0 He talked about his early …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[45,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-not-silly-stuff","category-work"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}