A 15-year-old Black girl from L.A. became the youngest African-American female pilot to make a solo flight across the United States. When Kimberly Anyadike landed her single-engine Cessna at Compton Woodley Airport Saturday, she was greeted by dozens of cheering admirers. She had taken off from Compton 13 days earlier with an adult safety pilot and an 87-year-old former Tuskegee Airman who served in World War II. Together, they flew to Newport News, Va., and made about a dozen stops along the way. “I wanted to inspire other kids to really believe in themselves,” said Anyadike, who learned to fly a plane and helicopter at 12 years old with the Compton-based Tomorrow’s Aeronautical Museum. She said she didn’t make the trip to set any records, only to honor the Tuskegee Airmen, the U.S. Army Air Corps’ all-Black WWII combat unit. “They left such a great legacy. I had big shoes to fill,” she said. “All they wanted to do was to be patriots for this country. They were told no, that they were stupid, that they didn’t have cognitive development to fly planes. They didn’t listen. They just did what they wanted to do.”

‘Jena Six’ Teen Explains His Suicide Rationale
Last month, when “Jena Six” teen Mychal Bell took his Christmas money and bought a .22-caliber gun to kill himself, he says he couldn’t face the world after running into trouble again. After all, he had the support of tens – maybe hundreds – of thousands of Americans who thought he had been wronged by a racist Louisiana judicial system. Read more here.

Obama Honors Black WWII Flyers
President-elect Barack Obama is making it clear that he appreciates the sacrifices that the Tuskegee Airmen – America’s first Black military pilots – made to this country. He has invited the 330 living World War II pilots to attend his inauguration, and many of them are accepting. “My career in public service was made possible by the path heroes like the Tuskegee Airmen trail-blazed,” Obama said then in a statement. Sixty years ago, the esteemed unit of the U.S. Air Force took part in the fly-past at the inauguration of President Truman. D.C. was still segregated at the time, and many the airmen were subjected to the indignities of Jim Crow, despite their heroics and sacrifice. But today, they will receive a hero’s welcome. Obama has reserved a high-profile place for them on the Capitol lawn to witness up close a day that many of them never thought they’d see.