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  "A
lot of modesty that's involved and he continues to talk and you think
wow, this man has done a lot."
Mrs. Lily Miles teaches at Scott Middle School. She's also
the sponsor of the TIE club. That stands for Teens Influencing Equality.
Today members are discussing who is going to be the first person on
the school's new Wall of Fame. They've chosen retired Lieutenant Colonel
Paul Adams. A former Tuskeegee airman and one of the first African-Americans
to teach in Lincoln schools, to them he is a living lesson.
[Lt. Col. Paul Adams, retired] "Well, I went to a separate
school, number one; rode in the back of the bus, number two; couldn't
go into the restaurants in the front door, cafes, hot-dog stands, ice
cream stands, number three; and you lived on one side of town definite,
number four."
Paul Adams was born in Greenville, South Carolina in 1920.
By age six he had gotten his first job. He would play with a white boy
whose family Paul's mother worked for.
[Adams] "So I had the job then at six years old just
to go there and play with this boy. That was my job. Just to keep this
boy -- play. His name was Otis. But with Otis, I went everywhere. See,
I was his somewhat nurse. So I went a whole lot of places where blacks
normally couldn't go."
 Paul's playful outings with Otis
turned to competition. As a teen Otis joined the Air Force to become
a pilot. Several years younger, Paul wanted to do the same. He did after
tragedy struck. How did Otis get killed?
[Adams] "Had a crash. He crashed in his L-5, the training
plane that teached him to fly. Otis was the one -- his daddy was the
one that got me into my flying training program."
Some obstacles existed for a young black man with the same
aspirations as a young white man. First, Adams had to get to Tuskeegee.
Wanting to fly was part of it, but the money was even more intriguing.
As a flight cadet, he would make $75 instead of the 21 he would make
as a draftee. He passed the flight training test three times but was
passed over. After a talk by his sponsor with the President, all was
well.
[Adams] "About a week later, I got a telegram from Franklin
Delano Roosevelt signed, report to Tuskeegee flying school. There was
no orders. It was just a telegram."
 For the first week, Adams worked K.P.,
that's kitchen patrol. He'd come in the middle of a training session.
Soon after, it was down to business. Long days of classes and hard days
of training lead him to graduation and eventually a trip home where
he was arrested for impersonating an officer.
[Adams] "Walking down the street in your uniform, the
M.P.'s wanted to pick me up and arrest me for impersonating an officer.
They didn't see black officers in my hometown, not one with wings on
him. We had pink trousers, pink shirts, white scarves, hat turned flat
down over our head and wings. We were really dogged out. We weren't
out of uniform. But whites just didn't dog themselves up that way."
 It would be a little while before the
airman would see action. Not until the families of white servicemen
asked questions, would the airmen be used in battle.
[Adams] "These black boys are flying around here having
a good time and our husbands, our uncles, and our cousins are getting
killed overseas. And they were. That is what brought up the pressure
to make congress then come up to send us overseas to begin with."
On Christmas Day 1944, Adams would go overseas. His high school
sweetheart, Alda, would wait for him.
[Alda Adams] "We were hoping that the war would be over.
See, we were all wartime brides. I mean, at that time, wartime fiancee.
I wasn't even married. See, that was a whole different situation then.
Well, you just be as brave as you possibly can, and the other thing
is you're not out there alone."
The young intelligence officer wasn't alone when he helped
escort bombers into enemy territory. They were flying P-47's, a lumbering
rejectof a plane.
 [Adams] "And then I went overseas
finally in a P-47 and the white boys in the 52nd and the 38 and the
8 all getting knocked out of the sky. They needed help. They had their
P-51's. We had a P-47 and when the battle got hot, knocked somebody
out of the sky, we went home because we didn't have no gas. Went back
home."
After enough lives were lost, the Tuskeegee airmen started
flying sleeker P-51's. The war soon won, Adams returned home where he
and other black officers were confined to barracks while German war
prisoners partied with the locals. "Were you bitter?"
[Adams] "What do you think? Yeah, bitter. Yeah, definitely
we were bitter and hurt, and outraged and all those things."
Adams got out of the service for a while, but with a growing
family decided to go back in. His life as a supply officer was arguably
less exciting, but he continually found himself the only black officer
at any given base, even when the armed forces were integrated.
[Adams] "Honolulu, Hickam Field -- great big Hickam Field,
headquarters Pacific Air Division, I was it."
But involved in the community and thankful their children
could be well traveled, the Adams family was grateful.
 [Alda] "You were thankful that you
have your family and your children and a car payment and a roof over
your head. "
The Adams' more than just got by. As commanding officer of
the base's entertainment facilities and a singer in the chorus, Adams
ran across Jimmy Durante, Gary Moore, and the like. He even received
a congratulatory message from Bob Hope.
"You did a great job for our country... "
After serving 21 years in the army, the Adams family retired
in 1963. Breaking ground again, Adams taught school at Lincoln High.
At the time he was one of only three African-American teachers in the
system.
[Adams] "Somehow you survive as a civilian now. Anyway
there were three black teachers in the whole system."
After 19 years as a shop teacher, Adams retired. Today Adams
stays busy, really busy. He is on the executive board of Mad Dads, involved
in his church, on the Kiwanis Builders Club but most importantly perhaps,
he volunteers with children. Colonel Adams also talked about a slide
show...
 From him, they have learned a great deal.
On the surface you may not see it, but some kids even identify with
some of Adams' struggles as a civilian man and as a Tuskeegee airman.
[Rose Yao] "They were a group of people who even though
they were shunned in their country at that time, they were like treated
as dirt and stuff, but they still wanted to serve their country and
they were willing to prove themselves in the eyes of the world. They
were like doctors and scientists that said because they were African-Americans
they weren't capable as fine motoring skills or something like that,
but they proved them wrong. I think that's really, really important
just like my ancestors did because the Chinese that came here, they
worked on the railroads, but now we're very much respected."
To future leaders, people like Colonel Adams prove invaluable.
Living lessons are hard to come by. Reporting for Statewide, I'm Donna
Wilson.
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