You'll need a plane ticket to see the exhibit, which stretches along two sides of a corridor beyond security checkpoints. Philadelphia International hosts an extensive program of 23 art displays to occupy travelers.
Decked out Thursday in white shirts and blue Tuskegee caps and wearing replicas of their 2007 Congressional Gold Medal, the Tuskegee men - now in their 80s and 90s - drew a crowd, including members of the St. Joseph's University Air Force ROTC and families en route to their flights.
"Without question, we changed the nation," said Eugene J. Richardson, 85, who graduated as a fighter pilot in 1945 and later became a Philadelphia public schoolteacher and a principal. "President Truman, recognizing how skillful black soldiers were, issued an executive order which started the end of segregation of the military."
Of the 994 pilots trained at Tuskegee, 450 were sent overseas, and 66 lost their lives. From 1941 through 1946, about 15,000 black men and women trained at Tuskegee and performed air and ground-crew duties.
"They weren't all pilots. A lot were support personnel," said Richardson, who was joined by three other World War II airmen: Bertram A. Levy, 88, a navigator and bombardier who spent 26 years in the military and retired a major; Pierce "Ted" Ramsey, 85, a pilot who flew the B-25 bomber; and Henry L. Moore, 90, a crew chief with the 302d Fighter Squadron.
"These men were flying airplanes, dangerous missions, trying to secure freedom for Americans, and yet not enjoying it themselves," Mayor Nutter told the crowd. "We all owe them a debt of gratitude."
The idea for the exhibit, part of the city's Wawa Welcome America festival, was hatched last summer when Philadelphia-area airmen came to the airport for National Aviation Day on Aug. 19.
