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Future Events
MAY 20, 2008
at 7:30 P.M.
Talk about the Museum
and
The African-American in WWII
John Brown Farm
115 John Brown Road
Lake Placid, New York
Past Events
FEBRUARY 13, 2008
One hour
talk about the Museum
and
The African-American in WWII
Mount Anthony Union High School
Bennington, VT
FEBRUARY 4th and 5th, 2008
Two one hour
talks about the Museum
Southern Vermont College
Bennington, VT
Monday Feb. 4th at 4:00 P.M.
Tuesday Feb. 5th at 2:30 P.M.
Both talks are open to the public.
OCTOBER 27, 2007
Clarence Dart
The museum was again honored, and
learned from, an African-American serving with the U.S. armed forces
during WWII, when Clarence Dart spoke about his wartime experiences
on October 27, 2007.
Dart, a resident of nearby Saratoga Springs, N.Y., had been a member
of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, whose superb performance during the
war was a major reason behind President Truman's desegregation of
the armed services soon after the war's end. The Tuskegee Airmen,
named for the location of their training field in Alabama, were the
first African-Americans to fly as fighter-pilots in the United
States armed forces. Tasked with protecting American bombing planes,
the Tuskegee Airmen did not lose a single escorted bomber to the
Germans.
As a child, Dart was fascinated with flight and made many airplane
models. He was drafted, and with tenacity got himself sent to
Tuskegee, where he was taught to fly by both black and white
trainers.
He acknowledged the role of Mrs. Roosevelt in persuading her husband
to have blacks trained as pilots. "Someone in the War Department,"
said Dart, "believed that the cranial capacity of blacks wouldn't
let them fly. We proved them wrong!"
He spoke of his fascinating and dangerous exploits. "It wasn't
anything glorious and glamorous," he said modestly, to a
disbelieving audience. But his listeners cringed when Dart mentioned
that the Germans would ask black POWs why they fought for a country
that treated them so badly. Altogether, it was a rich educational
experience for those who heard Clarence Dart in the museum on
October 27.
AUGUST 4, 2007 EVENT AT THE MUSEUM
An afternoon honoring an African-American patriot
Ray Elliott, a retired
chemist from Amherst, MA., was the honored speaker at the museum
at 2 p.m. on Saturday, August 4, 2007.
Serving for three years
of WWII in the Pacific with the 923rd Engineer Aviation Regiment,
Elliott helped to build the airfields that helped to bring victory
over Japan. He spoke at the museum about his
experiences in the segregated army, his work in the war effort, and
his life as a black man during the 1940s and 50s.
Currently the president
of the Amherst branch of the NAACP and the Amherst Interfaith
Service Council of Churches, he is a member of the Bahai spiritual
assembly. In addition to his discussion of life as a black man
in the service in WWII, he shared his thoughts on how we can
make this world a better place -- in his words, "a more just,
peaceful, and loving world."
"I was blessed that I never had to
kill another human being," said Elliott. The "oneness of the human
family" is now his firm belief. "But we weren't treated that way in
the segregated army," he recalled, citing some of the hazards of
being a black soldier -- in Mississippi, where the blacks would
often return to base beaten up by the police on false issues ("the
uniform didn't protect you"), and in Hawaii, where the locals had
been convinced by white sailors that the blacks had tails.
Elliott is a member of the Veterans Education Project, which helps
veterans to understand their wartime experience and trains them to
tell their stories to others. Elliott himself has talked to
schools, colleges, teacher workshops, and juvenile lockdowns,
helping to bring out the human aspects of history. He spoke to a
crowded hall, at the museum, and indeed made the human aspects of
history come alive.
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