TUSKEEGEE AIRMEN Lee Archer burst onto the scene on September 6, 1919 in Yonkers, New York, was raised in Harlem, and graduated from New York University. He wanted to be a pilot and fight for his country when the winds of war lit up the morning sky over Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Black men were not allowed to handle ‘chinery in those days, so Lee joined the Army and became a telegrapher down in Georgia. The Army, to its deep chagrin, was finally forced by Congress to change its policy and an experimental pilot training program was begun at Moton Field near Tuskegee, Alabama. One of the first to graduate from that program was a West Point officer named Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. At the time he graduated from the military academy
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