Celebrating high-flying heroes

By Emily Chaffins -

MIAMI GARDENS | During World War II, when opportunities for Black men and women were scarce, the Tuskegee Airmen stepped up to serve as the first Black military airmen in the United States – and made history.

According to Tuskegee University in Alabama, where approximately 1,000 Black pilots received training from 1941 to 1946, “The Airmen's success in escorting bombers during World War II – having one of the lowest loss records of all the escort fighter groups, and being in constant demand for their services by the allied bomber units – is a record unmatched by any other fighter group.”

The Tuskegee Airmen have been honored with numerous awards and recognitions, one of the latest of which is the Florida state government’s designation of Tuskegee Airmen Commemoration Day, an annual memorial that falls on the fourth Thursday of March. Although the law took effect July 1, 2024, this March 27 was the first time the holiday was observed.

The Tuskegee Airmen are still inspiring students today. Lynne Moore, a middle school ELA (English Language Arts) teacher at Nativity School in Hollywood, has been teaching seventh-graders about the Tuskegee Airmen this semester, immersing students in history through the poetry book You Can Fly: The Tuskegee Airmen by Carole Boston Weatherford and son Jeffery.

Moore contacted Captain Oneida "Jay" Rollins at Florida Memorial University (FMU) in Miami Gardens and scheduled a field trip near the inaugural commemoration day. As the only university in South Florida with the Historically Black University designation, FMU’s Blacks in Aviation: A Legacy Beyond the Skies Museum houses Tuskegee Airmen artifacts.

“I was looking for a book that we could bring into the curriculum that would merge history and social studies and literature, and for a good local field trip that would work with our STREAM program,” said Moore, who found the ideal combination in reading You Can Fly and visiting FMU on Mar. 26, 2025, the day before Tuskegee Airmen Commemoration Day.

Students explored FMU’s campus and air traffic control tower; received a guided tour of the museum from Captain Rollins; listened to aviation-related seminars by FMU students; conducted a flight simulation and saw a drone demonstration. Jeffery Boston Weatherford, co-author and illustrator of You Can Fly, met with the class on Zoom, teaching figurative language and art and delivering a special performance of poetry.

Moore was thrilled that, during the field trip, “every student was able to take something away from it that was valuable to him or her.”

“My artists loved the art, my students who love science were completely invested in the engineering and math, and of course the history was beautiful, to be able to be so close to things that belong to the Tuskegee Airmen,” she said. “Taking students outside school, as well and putting the book in practical terms and being able to visualize… what it was like to fly a plane – just putting everything together made it an enriching experience.”

Nativity School is known for effectively linking science, technology, research, engineering, art, and mathematics as part of the STREAM curriculum.

“One of most important things of being a 21st-century student is making connections,” said Moore, referring to the goal of STREAM. “Putting it all together is essential for the next steps as they head to high school.”

Connecting their learning to the world outside the classroom, students composed letters for servicemen and women traveling on an April 5 Honor Flight, a day trip from Fort Lauderdale to Washington, D.C. for veterans. The veterans read the seventh graders’ letters in flight during “mail call,” and later on, some of the seventh graders and the middle school Student Council met the travelers at Fort Lauderdale International Airport upon their return.

“Mail call was part of one of the poems in the book, so they (the students) really had an understanding about what it was like to be someone far from home who hasn’t gotten a message from home… They were really able to put themselves into the shoes of these men in the poem,” Moore said. “So it’s a great way for us to cap off our unit by being part of mail call.”