Jersey City native soared above prejudice as Tuskegee Airman, and one of first black pilots to fly for a commercial airline

Friday, February 26, 2010
By AMY SARA CLARK
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

When Robert Ashby first entered Ferris High School in Jersey City in the early 1940s, he had no idea what he wanted to do when he got out of school.

"Before the war, the prominent positions (for a black man) were a preacher, lawyer or funeral director. I wasn't considering any particular field to aim for," he said.

But when World War II hit, his path became clear.

"It was laid out that you were either going to be drafted or volunteer," said Ashby, who went on to become Lt. Col. Ashby. He was a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, who fought in the war, and later was one of the first black pilots to fly for a commercial airline.

At the time, blacks and whites were segregated in the military, with blacks given mostly menial jobs, such as cooking and laundry, said Ashby, who is now 84.

But Ashby, who hadn't yet turned 18 and was still enrolled at Ferris, had higher ambitions.

Shortly after he learned the military had started a program to train blacks to become pilots, Ferris started a class in aviation and he enrolled.

After graduation in July, 1944, he enlisted in the military and quickly found himself at the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama.

The cadets were black, the instructors were white.

"We had black drinking fountains and white drinking fountains. The mess halls, clubs, everything was segregated," Ashby recalled.