Dr. Albert Forsythe and his comrade in arms, C. Alfred Anderson, did much to advance opportunities for African Americans in the new field of aviation during the nineteen thirties.
Forsythe, a doctor by profession, persuaded Anderson, one of the first African Americans to receive a pilot's license, to join him in a series of daring and historic flights, known as "good will " flights, to show the world that black pilots could do anything white pilots could do. At the time it was the received wisdom that African Americans were inferior to whites and incapable of being pilots.
Their first flight was from Atlantic City, NJ, where Forsythe was practicing medicine, to Los Angeles. According to Forsythe, "The trip was purposely made to be hazardous and rough, because if it had been an ordinary flight, we wouldn't have attracted attention."
So they took off, equipped only with a compass and an altimeter-- no radio, lights, or parachutes. To guide them, they had a Rand-McNally road map, which flew out of Forsythe's hands on the return flight. Despite stormly weather, they successfully completed the flight.
Their second flight, from Atlantic City to Montreal, was also successful and made them the first black pilots to fly over an international border.
By this time, the pair had achieved a good deal of publicity, so they launched their next flight, a trip to the Caribbean and South America, with a ceremony at Tuskegee Institute, before hundreds of students and faculty, and with Booker T Washington's granddaughter in attendance.
They departed in November, 1934. This was to be their most difficult flight. In many of their destinations there were no runways or landing fields, and they were forced to land on a playing field or a city street.
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