Norton Presents Tuskegee Airmen’s Congressional Gold Medal Replicate to D.C. Tuskegee Airman Walter K. Robinson Sr.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) presented Documented Original Tuskegee Airman Walter K. Robinson Sr., a District of Columbia resident, with a bronze replicate of the Tuskegee Airmen's Congressional Gold Medal. The original medal was presented in the Capitol Rotunda to some 300 Airmen in March 2007 and now resides in the Smithsonian.

"Walter Robinson Sr. took up the call to service and enlisted in the Army despite facing discrimination at home, as an African American and as a District of Columbia resident, which had no self-government then and to this day has no voting rights," Norton said. "He was selected to become a Tuskegee Airman, an elite corps of African Americans, who rose to become heroes fighting the enemy from the sky. Mr. Robinson is emblematic of many D.C. residents who have heroically sacrificed so much for their country, even without their full citizenship rights. I was proud to be able to honor his service."

Four members of the East Coast Chapter of Tuskegee Airmen (ECCTAI) also joined yesterday's ceremony: Major Edward J. Talbert, USAF Reserve, Ret.; Colonel Charles E. McGee, USAF, Ret.; Major Louis Anderson, USAF, Ret.; and William Fauntroy, Jr.

In 1941, while attending Howard University, Mr. Robinson volunteered for the Army Air Corps. He was sent to Camp Lee in Virginia, Keesler Field in Biloxi, Mississippi, and finally to Tuskegee Army Air Base in Tuskegee, Alabama. He began training at Tuskegee Institute for Basic Ground School and after three months, continued in Pre-Flight, Primary, Basic, and Advanced Flight. During Primary Training, he had an accident, severing his Achilles tendon and was hospitalized for almost a year, enduring six operations and extensive physical therapy. Yet, Mr. Robinson completed Primary, Lower, and Upper Basic Training, and while he was in Lower Advanced, World War II ended. After his honorable discharge from the military, Mr. Robinson and his wife, Edmonia, moved to D.C. in 1959. He soon joined the Postal Service and rose through the ranks to become the second black Manager of Delivery and Collection for the District. Now widowed, Robinson is still an active member of the D.C. community.

Congresswoman Norton's office worked with the ECCTAI to obtain the paperwork necessary to certify that Mr. Robinson was a DOTA.