Muhammad Ali Center to feature Tuskegee Airmen

Muhammad Ali Center to feature Tuskegee Airmen

Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky will open an exhibit about the famous Tuskegee Airmen this month. The exhibit will feature the state's connections with the pioneering group of African-American pilots who fought for the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II.

The exhibit will feature memorabilia, historical documents, pictures and other items related to the Tuskegee Airmen. They were collected by Ron Spriggs of Nicholasville, Kentucky who was fascinated by the historical accomplishment of Black aviators as portrayed in the Hollywood movie about the group shown in cinemas in 1995.

"I realized that Kentucky has a rich history in black aviation even before the Tuskegee Airmen," Sprigss said. "There were 12 cadets from Kentucky (among the Tuskegee Airmen). Even before the Tuskegee Airmen experiment, Willa Beatrice Brown Chappell from Glasgow, Ky., was the first African-American/Native American woman to get her pilot's license," he said to Courier Press.

Spriggs began collecting in 2002 items such as books and model airplanes the aviators flew. These will be displayed at the Muhammad Ali Center, located along Interstate 64, throughout the month of February.

Visitors will have a rare chance to view a half-scale replica of the nose of one P51D Mustang plane that brought down three Me262 enemy aircraft. The captain of the flight crew hailed from Henderson, Kentucky.

Also included in the public display are 15 replica planes flown by the Tuskegee Airmen. A mannequin of the group's commander Col. Benjamin O. Davis is also on display.

The museum and cultural center was completed in 2005 as a tribute to the life, career and ideals of legendary boxing champion Muhammad Ali.

Posted by Andre Monohan on Tuesday February 15 2011, 4:55 AM EDT. Ref: Courier Press. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0