Washington’s NFL Team Could Be Renamed the ‘Red Tails.’ Real Tuskegee Airmen Have Mixed Feelings About That
By Sean Gregory
July 14, 2020 6:38 PM EDT
Would Lt. Col. Harold Brown, one of America’s first African-American military pilots, who flew with the famed all-Black Tuskegee Airmen in World War II, be in favor of the Washington, D.C., NFL team changing its name to the Washington Red Tails? The nickname, which comes from the painted planes flown by the Tuskegee Airmen, has been floated as a possible solution for the team in search of a name—and in this one corner, at least, the idea would find abundant support.
“Absolutely,†says Brown, 95, from from his home in Port Clinton, Ohio. Brown is one of the nine surviving Tuskegee pilots who flew in combat. “Thinking about it sort of selfishly in terms of our own legacy, we are running out of pilots,†says Brown. “Waiting a few years, that would be the end of us. I don’t know of a better way to keep that name alive than to put it on a name right behind ‘Washington.'â€
https://time.com/5866636/washington-nfl-redskins-red-tails/