To mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, we’re cataloging 25 objects that define the country’s history.
There’s a good chance you’ve heard of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first Black aviators in the U.S. military during World War II. A lot of their success was possible due to the bravery of African American aviator Chauncey Spencer. In 1939, Spencer and fellow Black pilot Dale White flew in a fragile biplane from Chicago to Washington, D.C. They then had a key meeting with members of Congress about Black representation among military pilots.
Spencer’s flight suit from that journey is now on display in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Here & Now’s Scott Tong spoke with curator Joseph Abel about the history stitched into that suit and the barriers Spencer broke.
5 questions with Joseph Abel
Who was Chauncey Spencer?
“Chauncey Spencer was born in Lynchburg, Va. And like a lot of pilots in this sort of golden age of flight, he had his first encounter with an airplane at a barnstorming event. He became fascinated with flight and decided that was what he wanted to do with his life.
“Growing up in Lynchburg, at the time, a segregated city, opportunities for him to train as a pilot were virtually nonexistent. So he actually made the move to Chicago after graduating high school and college, and began working odd jobs while he took flying lessons at a local integrated flight school on the south side of Chicago.”
What kind of flyer did he become?
“He was a risk-taker. He developed a reputation for parachute stunts. He would jump from a plane and very conspicuously discard the parachute that he was wearing, which amazed the crowd, of course. And then he would deploy a second parachute that he had hidden in his suit right as he could avoid injuring himself. Interestingly, in his memoirs, he recounts that one of these stunts went awry. He actually pulled the ripcord too late, and he ended up paralyzed for something like 10 days.”
What was the plane that Spencer and White flew like?
“Ironically enough, the plane’s name was ‘Old Faithful.’ It was a red-and-cream-colored biplane with a 90-horsepower engine. And according to Spencer, the only instruments that it had were an oil pressure gauge and an airspeed monitor. He also claimed that it was so underpowered that it would fly backwards if it encountered a headwind. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it’s good copy, right?
“So, Spencer, as a navigator, and his pilot, Dale White, took off from Chicago. From the very start, they had problems with the aircraft.”
What happened in a key meeting with then-Sen. Harry S. Truman?
“They had an unscheduled meeting with Truman in a hallway in the Capitol. And Truman asks them what they’re doing in D.C. before going on to inquire why the pair aren’t in the Air Corps. To which they respond that the Army didn’t accept Black pilots at the time. This answer actually really seemed to surprise Truman. And he asked the pair if they wouldn’t mind taking him to see their aircraft.
“Truman famously said something to the effect of, if Spencer and White were brave enough to fly such an aircraft to D.C., he would be brave enough to back their cause in Congress. So in the coming months, Truman, alongside Illinois Sen. Everett Dirksen, managed to insert a provision into a civil aeronautics bill that ensured that civilian pilot training funds would be accessible by Black aviators.”
When you step back, how do you situate this man and his flight suit into the longer story of civil rights in the U.S. military?
“One of the things that strikes me as a curator is there’s not anything particularly notable about the suit itself. I mean, it’s a pair of drab green coveralls that are made with standard materials. It’s wool, cotton and sheepskin. These are all materials that would’ve been very familiar to aviators at the time, and they were functional. They were designed to protect pilots from the elements in open cockpit airplanes. The lack of decoration on Spencer’s flight suit to me speaks to the desire of African Americans to simply be treated as equals in the sky.
“Spencer’s life, as represented in this artifact, shows to me that, even in massive institutions like the military, change more often than not comes from the bottom up and depends on the willingness of ordinary people to speak up for what they believe in.”
This interview was edited for clarity.
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Will Walkey produced this interview for broadcast with Catherine Welch. Walkey also produced it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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