Alpha beta / Alpha-bet
(Tuskegee Airman cadet Harry Stewart being hazed by upper class cadets at Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama in the Spring/Summer of 1943.)
Alpha beta gamma delta
epsilon zeta eta theta iota
kappa lambda mu nu xi
omicron pi rho sigma
tau upsilon phi chi psi
omega. Greek. low-flying
language. a cloud with no down home
training in Down South’s mouth;
but the Alabama atmosphere created enough
legroom for this at-attention tongue; leg-
room for a paddle’s hotdiggity on a new-
bies hamstring. This as close to
a frat house as Harry would get: inducted
by what would have been upper
classmen: upper: because they
were more familiar with the air
Double Tuskegee Haiku: Variation on a Theme
(In 1941, Alabama sharecropper Freddie Lee Tyson helped build the Moton airfield where the Tuskegee Airmen trained. Tyson also participated in the “Tuskegee Experiment” where black men were falsely told they were being cured of syphilis by doctors working at Tuskegee Institute. “Tuskegee Experiment” was also a term used to describe the training of the Negro military pilots in Alabama.)
Freddie Lee Tyson::::
sharecropper helped build Moton::::
double Tuskegee::::
II. DOUBLE TUSKEGEE EXPERIMENT: DOUBLE TAKE
Fus’lage resemble
a test tube; black man’s manhood
(once) was a test, too.
DEAR… SINCERELY…
(These epistolary poems are in conversation with actual letters between Tuskegee Airman Cecil Peterson and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who was instrumental in getting President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to integrate the Tuskegee Airmen into the military.)
III
83 Interceptor Control Squadron
Southeast Air Corps Training Center
July 7, 1942
Dear Mrs. Roosevelt,
The honor of your correspondence and your endless Christmases have encouraged me to always be a button-downed buttoned-up soldier. I have, three times, since your last letter, had the fortune of a four-leaf-clover. I was adopted by a new squadron, promoted to Airman First Class and given a small group of soldiers. My lips are sealed, (as are your letters before I open them) but my squadrons’ wanderings would impress you. I hope, one day, to be free to tell you about the tall talk of war. And while in the service, I pray to serve G-d, country, and my Uncle Sam. Please tell Mr. President, there’s an airman in Alabama who is a member of his Negro pom-pom squad. For now, though, I must go. A shortwave radio calls.
Very sincerely yours,
Airman First Class Cecil Peterson
The poems above are selections from Mills' series about the Tuskegee Airmen.
David Mills' four published collections are The Sudden Country, The Dream Detective, After Mistic, and Boneyarn—which is the book of poems about slavery in New York City, and winner of the North American Book Award. He holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College. He has been anthologized in Ploughshares, Fence, Jubilat, and elsewhere. Mills was awarded fellowships and grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Lannan Foundation, and the Schomburg Center, and others. He resided in Langston Hughes’ landmark Harlem home for three years and wrote the audio script for Deborah Willis’ “Reflections in Black:100 Years of Black Photography” exhibit at the Whitney Museum.