
A Mississippi artist presented the Senate with a tribute to Tuskegee airmen Thursday morning in the Capitol.
A painting, titled “Surprise!” now hangs in room 201 inside the Capitol depicting a scene from Aug. 30, 1944 when several airmen attacked German fighter planes.
The art was painted and donated by Clinard “Clint” Martin, who said recognition for the Tuskegee Airmen was long overdue.
“This is something I had hoped to do before I leave this world and now it it done,” said the 74-year-old artist and historian.
Martin, who lives in Hattiesburg, said his uncle from McComb served during World War II as one of the African American aviators in the 332nd fighter group.
During the presentation ceremony, Sen. Terry Burton, R-Newton, the Senate president pro-tempore, thanked Clinton “for keeping this history alive.”
“These were certainly some great men, we had a lot of the top intellectual minds in the country who were accepted into that program and even then people said they would never be able to fly,” said Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson. “It’s important that we remember that history, it is a great story of prevailing over great odds.”
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.