Captain and Commander of the Tuskegee Airmen of the 100th Fighter Squadron of the 332nd Fighter Group

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In 1942, despite his lack of professional training, Gordon Parks won a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship for his photography in 1942; this led to a position with the photography section of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) in Washington, D.C., and, later, the Office of War Information (OWI). Parks was the ﬁrst Black correspondent to work for the Ofﬁce of War Information, and one of his initial assignments was to photograph African American pioneers of another kind: the ﬁrst unit of Black ﬁghter pilots to serve in the American Army’s Air Corps, as part of the 332nd Fighter Group—known more famously as the Tuskegee Airmen.

Parks began by documenting these pilots during their training at Selfridge Field, near Detroit, capturing the danger and exhilaration of young men preparing for war. His assignment called for him to accompany the group during their early missions in Europe. At the time, Parks’s wife, Sally, was expecting their third child and the risks of combat photography were great, but the opportunity was too important for him to refuse. Unfortunately, when southern senators learned of Parks’s involvement with the 332nd Fighter Group, they were hostile to his assignment (as they were to the very existence of the 332nd). Parks was repeatedly told that his papers to travel to Europe were “not in order,” and in the end, he was not permitted to accompany the Tuskegee Airmen overseas. Thus his photographs do not encompass the breadth of the journey of the 332nd. Still, they reveal Parks’s heartfelt admiration for the men, their mission, and their accomplishments.

In 2014, The Gordon Parks Foundation honored Dr. Roscoe Brown, one of the Tuskegee Airmen Parks photographed, at the Annual Awards Dinner and Auction. An Army Air Force Captain in World War II, Dr. Brown commanded the 100th Fighter Squadron of the 332nd Fighter Group (the famed “Tuskegee Airmen”) and is credited with being the first 15th Air Force fighter pilot to shoot down a German jet fighter. In March 2007, Dr. Brown and his fellow Tuskegee Airmen were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of their service.

Gordon Parks, Pilots Gambling, Selfridge Field, Michigan, 1943

Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, Jr., Director of the Center for Urban Education Policy and University Professor at the Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York (CUNY), is President Emeritus of Bronx Community College of CUNY, and was founding Director of the Institute of Afro-American Affairs at New York University. He holds a doctorate from New York University, and served on faculty at West Virginia State College and as a full professor at New York University’s School of Education. A native of Washington, D.C., Dr. Brown is a graduate of Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, and received his Bachelor’s degree from Springfield College in Massachusetts.

Dr. Brown is Past President of One Hundred Black Men, and has served on the boards of many regional and City educational, arts and cultural and civic organizations -- including the YMCA of Greater New York, Fund for the City of New York, New York City Partnership, Association to Benefit New York, Museum of the City of New York, City Parks Foundation and Libraries for the Future.

Dr. Brown has received numerous awards and honors for scholarly and community activities, among them the NAACP Freedom Award, the Congressional Award for Service to the African-American Community, the New York Urban League’s Distinguished Citizen Award and Distinguished Alumnus awards from his alma maters – New York University and Springfield College. He was honored as a “New York City Treasure” during the City’s Centennial celebration, received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and the New York Post’s Liberty Medal.

An Army Air Force Captain in World War II, Dr. Brown commanded the 100th Fighter Squadron of the 332nd Fighter Group (the famed “Tuskegee Airmen”) and is credited with being the first 15th Air Force fighter pilot to shoot down a German jet fighter. In March 2007, Dr. Brown and his fellow Tuskegee Airmen were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of their service.

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Tribute to Dr. Roscoe Brown - Features - The Gordon Parks Foundation

Gordon Parks in Tuskegee Airmen flight jackets, Selfridge Field, Michigan, 1943. Photograph by Cecil Layne.

"America was in the second year of World War II. Unrest was building in the black military quarters because of discriminatory practices against Negroes in the Air Force. The 332nd Fighter Group was the first Negro fighter group. I was assigned to cover them training in Michigan, then travel with them to record them in combat overseas. During my weeks with these brave men, we lost a pilot in bad weather. His body had to be taken 300 miles to be embalmed because there were no facilities for handling the Negro dead. In December, training was finished; we were going overseas. As the traveling orders came in I learned my clearance had been canceled. I was taken aside and told that there were some politicians who realized that my pictures would appear in the white media. They did not want this small group of Negro pilots to get any publicity. The mood was bad when I was ordered to leave the base. A black crewman had been beaten up by white para-troopers. Those brave fighter pilots sailed toward war and death as they fought Hitler’s Luftwaffe. But racism towards me and them meant that I would not record these brave Negro heroes in action.”
–Gordon Parks, 1997