Remembering the Tuskegee Airmen – and Their Transit Legacy

From Michigan comes the sad news that one of the few remaining Tuskegee Airmen, Lt. Col. Harry Stewart, Jr. has died. He shared membership in that elite club with 12 other Black men, who came to NYC Transit after serving in World War II.

TWU Local 100 Interim President John Chiarello, honoring their legacy as part of Black History Month, said, “When our country needed fighters and pilots during World War II, the brave Tuskegee Airmen stepped up. They compiled an outstanding record of downing Nazi fighters in some of the most heroic battles of the war. But then they faced discrimination at home. TWU Local 100 stood up for the rights of Black transit workers to enjoy the same opportunities as White workers – and those included 12 of the Tuskegee Airmen who came back to start careers in transit. This month we honor them and their legacy will always live at the Tuskegee Airmen Depot in Harlem.”

Twelve members of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American military aviators in the U.S. Armed Forces, found a safe landing zone in New York City Transit and Local 100 after World War II. Six of the intrepid group of 12 airmen made careers in transit, while the others worked in the subways for a number of years while putting themselves through college and law school. All of them are believed to have passed away.

On March 23 of 2012, their legacy was recognized by the renaming of the 100th Street depot on Lexington Avenue to the Tuskegee Airmen Bus Depot. A well-attended ceremony took place on the spacious 4th deck of the state-of-the-art facility, which was fully rebuilt in 2003. Then Local 100 President John Samuelsen, MABSTOA Vice President Brian Clarke, and other officers and a host of rank and file operators and maintainers, attended. Also present were scores of former Tuskegee Airmen and family members, along with then MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota and NYCT President Tom Prendergast. Two of the original 12 were alive at the time of the Depot re-dedication.

At the event, Reginald T. Brewster, 94, a retired attorney who worked for transit as a Railroad Clerk while attending Fordham University, delivered a stirring recollection of the groups’ challenges in the air against Hitler’s Luftwaffe, and on the ground against mistrust and discrimination. The other living transit member of the group, Noel Harris, was ill and could not attend.

In his remarks, President Samuelsen credited the battle waged by TWU’s early leaders against discrimination in the workplace for “creating a culture of acceptance and equal opportunity for all workers at New York City Transit that enabled the 12 members of the Tuskegee Airmen and so many other African Americans to find employment on the buses and subways at a time when bigotry and in- equality ran rampant in most American workplaces.

“Since our union’s founding in 1934, the hallmark of TWU Local 100 has been fighting discrimination, breaking down barriers and assuring equal opportunity for all workers,” he said. “Like Local 100, the Tuskegee Airmen were about fighting for recognition, for equality and breaking down the barriers that existed for African Americans in the Armed Services and across America in employment, housing, access to loans and so many other things most Americans took for granted.”

A 5-foot high plaque, engraved with the names of the 12, was placed on the depot wall that day. It reads: “We honor the service, sacrifice, and achievements of the Tuskegee Airmen in the face of extreme adversity. In this depot, their spirit still soars.”

We are proud of the legacy left to Local 100 by the Tuskegee Airmen, and proud to have a depot named for these heroes.