Black teens learn to fly and aim for careers in aviation in the footsteps of Tuskegee Airmen

By COREY WILLIAMS and MIKE HOUSEHOLDER
Associated Press

DETROIT (AP) — Marie Ronny and Kyan Bovee expect their futures to take off. Literally. The Black teens from Detroit are part of a free program teaching youths aged 14 to 19 how to fly. The Tuskegee Airmen Flight Academy also exposes students to careers in aviation, an industry in which people of color are traditionally underrepresented. Their classrooms are the skies above Detroit’s Coleman A. Young municipal airport and inside a hangar also serving as home to the Tuskegee Airmen National Museum. The program offers flight instruction and ground school classes leading to a private pilot license. Most of the 30 students in the current class are Black.