Perry Young

Perry Henry Young Jr. (March 12, 1919 – November 8, 1998) was an American aviator who helped train pilots during World War II and became the first African American pilot for a regularly scheduled airline in the United States.

Early life Born in Orangeburg, South Carolina, in 1919, Young moved with his family to Ohio in 1929. After graduating from high school, he was accepted to Oberlin College. While a freshman at Oberlin, Young used the proceeds from part-time work to pursue a private pilot's license. He soloed in under four flight hours of instruction

Tuskegee Airmen instructor

As America's entry into World War II approached, the US government enacted the Civilian Pilot Training Program in 1939 to fund pilot training at or near select colleges and universities. The program was expanded in 1941 and included some historically black colleges and universities. Most notably, this included Tuskegee University in Alabama where the famed Tuskegee Airmen were trained.

Young landed a job as one of the 40 African American flight instructors for the newly formed 99th Pursuit Squadron. This included Lee Archer who was awestruck when he learned that some of the instructors in the program were Black: "Very few of us knew anything about flying – few blacks did – and we thought our instructors were going to be white. When I saw men like Perry Young, I was surprised and proud. They were like minor gods to me."

Although he wanted to serve, Young was not allowed. The instructors were considered too valuable to potentially lose in combat and were forbidden to join deploying units. His wife was quoted as saying: "He didn’t want to be an instructor who trained cadets. He wanted to be a cadet. He wanted to fly". But he soon began moving to wherever he could find aviation-related work. In 1946, he went to Haiti and established a small airline (Port-au-Prince Flying Service), but it soon closed.