A deserving honor!
A 97-year-old Tuskegee airman just received his 2nd Congressional Gold Medal, KKTV reports.
Airmen Franklin J. Macon was just awarded his 2nd Congressional Medal, this time for his WWII Civil Air Patrol Service. Macon received his first medal for his service as an original Tuskegee Airmen. The journey for Macon and other Black airmen at the time, while difficult, was an honorable one and more importantly, one deserving of the highest recognition, many of which are still rolling in today.
“The powers that be thought that Black people couldn’t fly airplanes, so they made a squadron of only Black men — and it was still a segregated Army Air Corps at the time — to go through flight school and the trials and tribulations of that flight school, with all the odds against them, of people trying and hoping and making and wanting them to fail, and they didn’t. They came out ahead,” said Lt. Col. Rochelle Kimbrell, the first Black woman Air Force fighter pilot.
Adjutant General of Colorado, Brigadier Gen. Laura L. Clellan, presented Macon with his medal, an honor he accepted with tears in his eyes. Macon is one of less than 12 surviving Tuskegee Airmen today, and only two, Macon included, live in Colorado.
“These gentlemen went through hard times as Black Americans getting into the Air Force and flying airplanes against all odds. I knew I wanted to be a pilot since I was in fourth grade, and if they hadn’t gone out and done that then there wouldn’t have been more trails for me to blaze,” Kimbrell added.
To learn more about Macon’s accomplishments, visit www.franklinmacon.com.
Congratulations, Airmen Macon!
Photo Courtesy of FranklinMacon.com