Tuskegee Airman Dies

Milton Pitts Crenchaw, one of the last remaining instructors for the Tuskegee Airmen, passed away recently near Atlanta. He was 96. Crenchaw was one of the original flight instructors for the program established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to train black pilots in a segregated unit. He was the first Arkansan to be successfully trained by the federal government as a civilian licensed pilot. He later was instrumental in establishing an aviation program at Philander Smith College in his native Little Rock, Ark. Read an interview that Inviting Arkansas did with Crenchaw. For more information about the Tuskegee Airmen, visit the Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. website, the New York Times website, and the Tuskegee Airmen Archives on the University of California, Riverside website.