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Obama Inaugural to Include Tuskegee Airmen Float

tuskegee.edu

President Barack Obama's second inaugural parade will include a tribute to the Alabama-based Tuskegee Airmen who broke the color barrier during World War II.

The presidential inaugural committee announced plans for the parade on Monday.

Black fliers trained at Moton Field in Tuskegee in the 1940s to become the nation's first minority pilots during the war. The field is now a historical site located off Interstate 85 east of Montgomery.

The parade float is being designed as a tribute to the young men who became the first black aviators in the U.S. military. It will feature a model of a P-51 Mustang, the fighter the Airmen are best known for flying.

The pilots came to be known as "Redtails" for the color they painted the rear of the fighters.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

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