Girls Excluded From ‘Red Tails’ Field Trip; Thousands of Texas Schoolboys Brought to See the WWII Film
When 5,700 fifth-grade boys in Dallas’ public schools recently went to see a movie about black fighter pilots in World War II, the girls stayed in school and saw a different movie instead.
One of the pilots is among those asking why.
A spokesman for the Dallas Independent School District said officials took only boys to see “Red Tails” Thursday because space at the movie theater was limited. Jon Dahlander told The Dallas Morning News that leaders of the district also thought boys would enjoy the movie more than girls.
“Red Tails” tells the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the legendary pilots during World War II who become the first black aviators to serve in the U.S. military. The movie opened last month.
Some female students were shown a different movie instead: “Akeelah and the Bee,” about an 11-year-old girl who competes in a national spelling bee.
Dahlander, who did not return several phone messages from The Associated Press, told the newspaper that the district often holds gender-specific events.
“It’s not out of the ordinary,” Dahlander said.
But an original Tuskegee Airman and others questioned why everyone didn’t get to see the same movie. Herbert Carter, who flew 77 missions in World War II with only one crash landing, said he was “almost speechless.”
“I’ve heard everything else,” said Carter, 94, in a phone interview. “This is the first time I’ve heard that it was unfit for female students.”
Carter’s wife of nearly 70 years, Mildred, who died in October, became the first black woman in Alabama to hold a private pilot’s license, their son Kurt Carter said.
But while Herbert Carter trained at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute and went on to serve, Mildred Carter was barred by the military from flying, Kurt Carter said. She would go on to fly privately for decades after the war, he said.
