Author: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Wednesday, February 08, 2012

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Jordan Bryson, a sixth-grader at LTMS, will talk about his book mid-month at two branches of the Lexington Public Library.

For sixth-grader Jordan Bryson, the past connects to the present as he retells the story of the Tuskegee Airmen in his new children’s picture book. “I’m just getting the book out, which will piggyback on the movie ‘Red Tails,’ and it’s Black History Month,” he noted.

“I’ve always been a fan of history, and I found stuff about World War II that I hadn’t heard before,” he said. “A civilian pilot training program led to African-Americans getting into the Air Force. It’s basically the untold chapter of World War II.”

After winning last spring’s countywide history fair contest, he has expanded a class project into a self-published book – “I can do anything: Lessons I learned from the Tuskegee Airmen.”

Jordan, who attends Lexington Traditional Magnet School, also has collaborated with a high school student at Lexington Christian Academy who is illustrating his text. “I told her what I needed, and she gets it done. So far, her drawings are very good,” he reported.

Veteran aviator Joseph Gomer, whom Jordan interviewed by phone, impressed the youngster with his assurances that anything is possible and inspired his book’s title.

“I learned a lot about the Tuskegee Airmen, their contribution to civil rights and how the efforts of those in our past have provided opportunities we have today. They helped cause a chain reaction in history that led to the end of segregation,” said 12-year-old Jordan, who became a student member of the Tuskegee Airmen Inc., a national organization that promotes the legacy of the first African-American aviators in the U.S. military.

“Before my project, if you mentioned the Tuskegee Airmen, I wouldn’t have known what you were talking about. I found out who they were and all of the amazing things they accomplished,” he said. “For me, one simple project became a book. For them, one simple piloting program turned into a major accomplishment during World War II. The bombers (the airmen escorted) were going down, but they barely lost anything. Their casualties were low, and they did a very good job. I learned that if you believe you can make a difference, then you can.”

The writing assignment was a main component of Jordan’s original history fair project. He opted to use a journal format, writing from the perspective of a boy his age growing up in Alabama during WWII. With a few more characters and details added, the journal became a book. The narrator, Thomas, has older cousins who love to fly and join the pilot training program. He sees them off on missions, and they send postcards from the front.

“I was writing in my own voice and took it back into the past,” Jordan recalled.

Jessica Ault, who was his fifth-grade teacher at Liberty Elementary last year, said his history project was “just over the top” with its model airplanes hanging and an airman moving up and down a timeline.

“It was very interactive. You’d open a card and hear him singing the Tuskegee Airmen fight song. … He put so much time and effort into it, and it really showed,” Ault said. “He knew his facts, too. He could talk about it. I’d spend recess drilling and quizzing and asking him questions. He could talk about it like he really knew it. You could tell he took a vested interest in it.”

Ault wasn’t surprised that her former student took the initiative to go a step further.

“Jordan was always a gifted writer and always had wonderful voice in his writing,” she said. “I’d see how he could make a book out of it.”

Coming up

LTMS sixth-grader Jordan Bryson will introduce his book, “I can do anything: Lessons I learned from the Tuskegee Airmen,” through the Lexington Public Library.

• 2 p.m. Feb. 18 at the Northside branch, 1733 Russell Cave Road
• 2 p.m. Feb. 20 at the Village branch, 2185 Versailles Road

Website: www.icandoanythingbook.com

Did you know?

During World War II, the U.S. military was racially segregated. Reflecting American society and law at the time, most black soldiers and sailors were restricted to labor battalions and other support positions. An experiment in the U.S. Army Air Forces, however, showed that given equal opportunity and training, African-Americans could fly in, command and support combat units as well as anyone. The black fliers, the so-called Tuskegee Airmen, served with distinction in combat and directly contributed to the eventual integration of the U.S. armed services. (Source: National Museum of the U.S. Air Force)

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