San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Soaring, he gave wings to others
The sky wasn’t the limit. For them, the cliché was a lie because aspirations, be they metaphorical or literal, were discouraged and denied.
Like other places on the Earth, to which they were bound, the sky was off-limits to men with skin darkened by the sun’s kiss; this kiss, it was deemed, robbed them of the intelligence, reflexes and courage to fly planes in defense of our nation. A nation that segregated and bound them to separate and unequal fates. But still, they aspired to fly, and fight, because their belief in their nation’s promises and possibilities was stronger than the racism of their nation’s leaders.
And when those leaders, belatedly, realized they needed them during World War II, these men, these audacious Black men, took flight with the faith that if they could save democracy for Europeans, they could achieve democracy for themselves in the United States.
By the end of the war, the Tuskegee Airmen, trained in the airfields of Tuskegee, Ala., had changed some of the racist notions
about their capabilities, even if it took longer to change the American laws denying them their full citizenship.
The Tuskegee Airmen fighter group was composed of the 301st, 302nd, 99th and 100th fighter squadrons. In more than 15,000 sorties, on 1,500 missions, they lost only 25 of the planes they escorted. In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded them the Congressional Gold Medal.
Nearly 1,000 pilots were trained in the program, but “Tuskegee Airmen” refers not only to the pilots but to the
support group of mechanics, instructors, nurses and cooks.
In San Antonio, and across the country, there once were so many of them, many living into their 80s and 90s with quite a few making it to 100.
On April 29, retired Air Force Senior Master Sgt. James Lee Bynum of San Antonio died at 101. With his passing, the lone surviving Tuskegee Airman in San Antonio is 95-year-old Dr. Eugene Derricotte.
Even at 101, Bynum looked decades younger, with the sturdy physique of the stellar lightheavyweight
Golden Gloves boxer he was as a teenager in South Carolina. Apparently, he’d forget how old he was. He’d tell his stepdaughter, Dolly Adams-Willis, “I go to the cafeteria and sit with the old people.”
She laughed and said, “He was 101 years old. He was the oldest one there!”
Like every Tuskegee Airmen I have known, Bynum embraced the history and legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen and was committed to educating younger generations about them.
“He was so proud to be one,” Adams-Willis said. “He enjoyed all the presentations he got to make and the events he attended. He really enjoyed talking to the children and the different ROTC groups at various high schools. What, I think, I’m most happy about is that in his later years, there was a sense of purpose, an opportunity to give back, and he loved it.”
On the Saturday after he turned 100 in 2021, more than 100 cars honored him with a drive-by parade. Bynum had turned 100 on Jan. 6, 2021, and was shocked as he watched TV and saw Americans attack the U.S. Capitol, laying siege to a symbol of a democracy that he wasn’t able to fully enjoy while fighting for democracy overseas.
Alarmed, he asked AdamsWillis, “Did you see what they were doing? What is going on?”
“He was appalled and thought it was sad,” AdamsWillis said.
They’re almost all gone, now, these men who lived long enough to enjoy their recognition for being heroes and legends. Locally, there was Granville Coggs, Percy Sutton, Warren Eusan, Thomas Ellis, John “Mule” Miles, Theodore Johnson, among others. For those of us who knew some, most or all of them, losing one is like losing your grandfather.
But the passing of each is a reminder to honor their legacy by giving flight to our dreams. They taught us how to soar.