the case.
Not long after returning to campus in 1941, Charles was between classes heading south from Wesley Foundation to the Chemistry Building. He spotted Frances walking toward Green Street. They spoke briefly as their paths crossed. After taking a few steps, Charles turned hoping to get another glimpse of her. To his delight, she had done the same and was looking back too. Their eyes met, she smiled and, in that brief exchange, doubt evaporated and the mystical die was cast.
Afterward, they spent time together at church and Frances consented when he asked to walk her home from classes. From then they were together whenever possible. Without a lot of money, “library dates” were frequent. Charles credited these with getting him back on track academically. He had changed his major to Life Sciences and was making the Dean's List. Nevertheless, it was a struggle to stay in school. Tuition and housing were a big expenses and after they were taken care of
he was lucky to have a nickel to buy an apple. To earn money for food, he bussed dishes at one of the fraternity houses and the Champaign Country Club.
By the end of the semester just about everyone knew of someone who had been drafted. Charles' father had served as a commissioned officer and chaplain with the infantry in France during World War I. He spoke enough about his experience to paint a vivid picture of life as a ground soldier in combat and it was grim. Yet what option did Charles have? If called upon, he knew he would have to slosh through muddy woods and fields and endure bitter cold while living in uncomfortable encampments and fighting from foxholes. The thought was more than a little unsettling. Though he began to wonder, he didn’t know what other choice he had.
On December 7, 1941 Charles was visiting his father and anticipating a quiet 22nd birthday. At 4:00 pm, while riding with members of the Coleridge Taylor Glee Club from Gary to a church in South Chicago for an evening vespers program, he heard numbing news coming across the radio.
"Today at 7:50 am, Pacific time, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor...."
The United States declared war against Japan. While the glee club went on with the show that night, the year ahead was suddenly filled with uncertainty and Charles knew that one way or another, we were going to be involved in war.
Back together on campus, he and Frances knew his call to service was just a matter of time. Each day was precious and tomorrow offered no promises, only the hope of being together. They started going steady. Day by day, life went on and Charles continued school and work. In the meantime, Lewis Sr., Lewis Jr. and Ruth, responding to the build up of armed forces, volunteered for the military service.
Early in 1942, as Charles contemplated his fate, news of a possible alternative began to circulate around campus. According to the grapevine, colored soldiers would be taught to fly at Chanute Field in Rantoul, Illinois, just north of Champaign. (As it turned out, non-flying support personnel in communications, engineering, armament and mechanics were being trained at Chanute Field and pilot training was at a remote training school near Tuskegee, Alabama. There, the wife of the President of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt, had flown with a black pilot, Charles Alfred "Chief" Anderson of the Civilian Pilot Training Program. She was visiting Tuskegee Institute to look into research being done on infantile paralysis, her husband's illness. To the shock of her secret service agents, the flight with "Chief"was an impromptu decision she made. The highly publicized event helped counter skepticism about the ability of blacks to fly and changed lives and history. Mrs. Roosevelt subsequently was reported to have told her husband that if the country was going to train pilots for the coming war, some of them ought to be black.)
The rumored program was real. The War Department approved Army Air Corps plans for an all-black pursuit squadron and funds for training enlisted support personnel at the Air Corps Technical School at Chanute Field in January of 1941. Primary pilot training was awarded to Tuskegee Institute with more advanced instruction slated for Tuskegee Army Air Field to be constructed nearby. From its inception, there had been attempts to scuttle the program, but the war effort needed more pilots and despite racist attitudes, no more impediments to stall the trial program could be justified. The first all-black class (42C, following the Corps wide convention of naming the 3rd class in each training program in 1942) was in training and Tuskegee Army Air Field was preparing for more trainees. On March 6, 1942, five black men completed the program, four taking the oath of office and pinning on the wings that told the world they were pilots. The fifth graduate, Captain B. O. Davis Jr., commissioned at West Point in 1936, had at last accomplished his long cherished wish to become a pilot.
Closer to home there was tangible evidence of the program’s existence. Fifteen miles north of Champaign at Chanute Field, Colored non flying personnel were being trained to support the 99th Pursuit pilots in Tuskegee. Frances' nephews, Ernest and Cecil Jr., entered the Chanute program. True enough, a quiet recruiting campaign had been launched to find a select number of candidates to undergo the tough screening process. Those gaining admission entered the strenuous training designed to transform them into a combat unit in the Army Air Corp.
Charles decided to apply. In April of 1942, he was sent to northern Indiana to take the written and physical exams. The screening was unique to Charles and having a black applicant was apparently unique to the recruitment officers, as well.
"There was a guy there who had never dealt with any blacks and he kept filling in the blanks wrong because he was writing (I was) white."
Charles wanted to fly. The decision was not hard. Even with the application submitted, the road to Tuskegee proved to be formidable. The next big hurdle was escaping the long arm of the draft. It took months for applications to move through channels and while the draft could be manipulated for a well-connected few, it was a good bet no favors were granted the ordinary man. Like so many institutions, the draft was political, and it was highly unlikely for a poor black boy to pull strings necessary to delay his call, especially while awaiting orders to a little known "Tuskegee Experiment." In fact, during the anxious months of hoping and waiting to hear their fate, several aspirants were drafted and had to board the troop trains and report to boot camp. Some of these draftees pleaded for consideration.
“I've applied for air training. What can be done?"
The response was, "Well, you're in the infantry now, boy."
Few who were drafted transferred to flying.
In late spring of '42, Charles learned he had passed the test and was accepted in the program. Now it was a question of which call to duty would come first.
After the semester, he went back to the mills, but unlike the preceding summer, he spent hard earned money to make the trip to Champaign whenever he could. Mrs. Foster, one of Momma Nellie's boarders, frequently sat on the screened front porch and often was the first to announce his arrival.
"Frances, that ‘ole square headed boy is here to see you."
The affection they all felt toward Charles was not veiled by the teasing and banter exchanged.
On those visits, he walked downtown with Frances and her mother, carrying the sacks from their shopping excursions. There were evening strolls hand in hand at the county fair. Long talks began to guardedly explore plans for their future after the war.
On those summer evenings Charles and Frances sat on the porch of the house on Hickory Street. They escaped there to have some time alone, for it was hard to make even the most innocent contact under Momma Nellie's watchful eye.
In addition to a kiss, on one night Charles gave his love an engagement ring. With her consent to marry him, they embarked on a lifelong adventure. The night of their engagement was no exception to the vigil kept by Nellie. Shortly after ten o'clock, the lights on the porch
