Washington, D.C. – One of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, H.M. Cummings, never thought when he was arrested in 1945 that he would live to see an African-American president.
Yet the 89-year-old former B-52 pilot was at the inaugural ceremony for Barack Obama in Washington today. He was joined by other former airmen at the ceremony.
Cummings was among 103 African-American airmen taken into custody at Freeman Field, Ind., in 1945 for refusing to sign a letter promising to stay out of the all-white officer's club. Cummings said back in those days, POWs had more freedom than black pilots.
Cummings says he always expected the United States to have an African-American president some day, but he didn't expect it to be so soon.
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