Milton P. Crenchaw: Outstanding Airman

Milton P. Crenchaw: Outstanding Airman

Milton Pitts Crenchaw, of the original Tuskegee Airmen, was one of the first African-Americans in the country and the first from Arkansas to be trained by the federal government as a civilian licensed pilot at a time when Jim Crow laws were still in effect. He trained hundreds of cadet pilots while at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute in the 1940s and was the catalyst for the first successful flight program at Philander Smith College in Little Rock. For more than forty years from 1941 to 1983, Crenchaw served with the U.S. Army (in the Army Air Corps) and eventually the U.S. Air Force. He was inducted into the Arkansas Aviation Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded Crenchaw and other members of the Tuskegee Airmen the Congressional Gold Medal. The Tuskegee Airmen are the largest group to ever receive this medal. Crenchaw was also inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.