Strength and Courage runs through our veins

Ahk Bacariel and Ahote Kheelkeeyah’s father is honored in Washington D.C. for his service as a Tuskegee Airman
KNN-Dimona

On March 29, the United States honored the Tuskegee Airmen by awarding the group the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award bestowed by the federal legislature.

A 1925 study by the Army War College titled "The Use of Negro Manpower in War" concluded that African-American "men were cowards and poor technicians and fighters, lacking initiative and resourcefulness." It also called them a "subspecies of the human population."

So the Army Air Corps wasn't expecting much in 1941 when it began training a small group of African-American men to become pilots at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute, a historically black college. What it got was one of the most successful flying squadrons in American military history

Shattering racist stereotypes, they flew more than 15,000 sorties over North Africa and Europe during World War II, destroyed more than 250 enemy aircraft on the ground and 150 in the air, and fiercely protected the American and Allied bombers they escorted on missions.

"We dared not fail," said retired Air Force Lt. Col. Charles W. Dryden, 86, who earned his wings at the Tuskegee program in 1942. "We dared not fail because the white folks could say, `See, we knew they couldn't do it.'"

KNN asked Akote Kheelkeeyah why this historical moment was so special for her. She replied, “The reason this is so special for me because this day vindicates my father’s name and exonerates him as the great man he really was and not what he fell prey to because truly he was preyed on by the adversary.

Racism slavery was a terrible thing for us as a people. However our greatness continued to rise to the top; The elect who were placed with the elite, who grew up in the house of pharaoh.

My father knew and told us we were from the ancient biblical Hebrew Israelites. He was told that as a child by the elders in secret. He was from the royal line. This day I’m so proud to be his daughter. I never knew his greatness. But today in the days of Yah’s Kingdom his greatness is known throughout the earth.

And like Joseph, and like Daniel, he grew up in the house of pharaoh and he paid the price for his son and daughter to be here (in Israel) today.”