Honors for First Black TopGuns from WWII

For a younger generation, the name Tuskegee may not mean all that much. But for people at least my age – 51 – it stands for much. It is the Alabama town where Booker T. Washington founded a school now known as Tuskegee University. It is where the federal government shamelessly abused Black men in an experiment observing the effects of syphilis while withholding medical care.

But it is also where a unit of young Black airmen formed what became known as The Tuskegee Airmen. That President Roosevelt (with the prodding of Eleanor Roosevelt among others) permitted the airmen to be trained to fight in World War II was itself a milestone, but the record amassed by those fighter pilots and their support team was even more historic.

At long last, they are receiving their due – those who are still alive, that is. Each day, as with all WWII vets, their numbers decline. But a few days ago 300 of them and their family members – coming from New York, Missouri, Michigan, North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio, Maine, Georgia and Florida, among others states – were honored at the US Capitol with the rarely given Congressional Gold Medal.

"To my heroes, so many of you have said thank you," Rep. Charles Rangel told them during a ceremony that included Congressional leaders and President Bush. "It doesn't work that way. We cannot say enough thank-yous to you." Rangel, from Harlem, and Sen. Carl Levin, from Michigan, sponsored a bill to award the airmen with the medal, first presented in 1776 – to George Washington.

Bush told them: "I would like to offer a gesture to help atone for all the unreturned salutes and unforgivable indignities. And so, on behalf of the office I hold, and a country that honors you, I salute you for the service to the United States of America." He actually pulled off a pretty crisp military salute.

We should all salute them -- as well as the contributions many of them went on to make to their communities in civic affairs, in politics, in business, in education.

"A Great Day in Harlem...A Great Day in the United States"

Hundreds of people made those kinds of declarations Sunday afternoon in a lavish Harlem inaugural celebration of Rep. Charlie Rangel’s elevation to what former President Clinton declared to be “the most powerful committee in the United States Congress.” He is now “Mr. Chairman” of the House Ways and Means Committee.

“It’s a new day,” Rangel himself declared, while describing a far-reaching agenda that includes addressing not just the war in Iraq, but also the rebuilding of the states devastated by Hurricane Katrina, poverty in general and education.

The Great Hall at the City College of New York could hardly contain people who came out to honor the chairman – and to eat all that great food supplied by Upper Manhattan restaurants.

Pioneering politicians were there, starting with the emcee, the new Lieutenant Govenor, David Paterson; his father, Basil; former Mayor David Dinkins; former Manhattan Borough President and masterful entrepreneur, Percy Sutton; former Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields and on and on and on. Entertainers present included Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover and Tony Bennett, who belted out an a capella version of “America the Beautiful.”

Basil Paterson, who with Dinkins, Sutton and Rangel have been powerhouses in the New York Democratic Party for decades, said he never doubted that Rangel would become chair of Ways and Means. “It took longer than I thought,” he told me.

Rangel said he often thought of leaving Congress, especially these last 12 or so years when Republicans ruled. But, as Assemblyman Keith Wright, who now literally sits in the seat once occupied by Rangel in the New York Legislature, told me: “He stayed the course.”

Now the question is what will he really be able to accomplish not only for Harlem, not only for Black Americans, but for all Americans. He is still a vigorous septuagenarian – and a wily politician.

Hail to Mr. Chairman! For now.