August 11, 1941

Original Tuskegee Airman Milton Pitts Crenchaw graduated with his commercial pilot certificate. Crenchaw became a primary civilian flight instructor and eventually one of the two original supervising squadron commanders under Charles A. Anderson. He and Charles Foxx were the first instructors for the first group of student pilot trainees between 1941 and 1946. Crenchaw 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. He trained hundreds of cadet pilots while at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute in the 1940s and was the catalyst in starting the first successful flight program at Philander Smith College in Little Rock (Pulaski County) from 1947 to 1953.