Rep. Teri Sewell called on the U.S. Air Force to reinstate a Tuskegee Airmen history video recently removed from the military instruction curriculum. (File)
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The Birmingham Times
After widespread outrage, the Trump administration on Monday reversed course and reinstated the Tuskegee Airmen to Air Force Curriculum, a move that left U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell “relieved” but “vigilant”, she said.
On Saturday, Sewell called on the U.S. Air Force to reinstate a Tuskegee Airmen history video removed from the military instruction curriculum following Donald Trump’s executive orders banning (DEI) across the federal government.
One day later, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the removal of Tuskegee Airmen videos and curriculum about the Tuskegee Airmen from its military instruction curriculum “has been immediately reversed.”
“While I am relieved that our collective calls have forced the Trump Administration to reverse course, the removal of the Tuskegee Airmen from the Air Force curriculum should have never happened in the first place,” Sewell said. “We should all see the Trump Administration’s attacks on DEI for what they really are — an attempt to whitewash our history and devalue the contributions of African Americans.”
Trump, during his inaugural address last week, vowed to end federal DEI practices, which he alleges are the government’s efforts to “socially engineer race and gender” into public and private lives. He then signed an executive order aimed to dismantle federal DEI programs.
“Throughout the next four years, we as Americans will need to remain especially vigilant against attacks on Black history, and as elected officials, we should be prepared to call them out,” Sewell said. “I hope we can continue to do so in a bipartisan manner.”
In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded the Tuskegee Airmen the Congressional Gold Medal in a ceremony at the Capitol Rotunda.
All of the nearly 1,000 Black military pilots who trained in the U.S. during World War II did so in Tuskegee, a city of about 8,700 residents today that is 87 percent Black.
Mark Brown, president and CEO at Tuskegee University, also said “the story of the Tuskegee Airmen is not one of diversity and inclusion rather it’s an American story of the evolution of Air Power and inclusion of all available talent.”
