U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer will interview a Tuskegee Airman today, as the College Park Aviation Museum officially kicks off its participation in the Veterans History Project.
“This is a way for historians, future generations and people today … to hear veterans’ stories from their point of view,” said Lars Wilcut, who is coordinating the project at the museum. “It’s not just the text book history of generals.”
The Tuskegee Airmen, the United States’ first black military pilots, fought in World War II.
“The Tuskegee Airmen embody the very best our county has to offer and their stories are critical pieces of our nation’s wartime history,” Hoyer said in an e-mail.
In 2000, Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, co-sponsored the legislation directing the Library of Congress to create the history project.
About six months ago, Wilcut said, a Hoyer staffer encouraged him to bring the aviation museum onboard.
“We had our first two interviews last week, and we are hoping for probably two or three every Saturday,” Wilcut said. “We are ready,” he said, “to interview any and all war veterans.”
Wilcut will initially conduct most of the interviews, but the museum is training a team of teens to eventually do them.
“One of the appeals is this multigenerational connection,” Wilcut said.
According to Peter Bartis, a senior program officer for the Veterans History Project, the Library of Congress now has about 800 project partners including the museum.
He said the library has already cataloged close to 50,000 interviews.
“Their wartime stories,” Bartis said, “are on the … same shelves where the papers of that surveyor named George Washington [sit].”
The aviation museum event begins at 12:30 and is open to the public. It is located at 1985 Cpl. Frank Scott Drive, College Park.
