Private First Class Leroy Murray was a Tuskegee Airman, one of the many men involved in what was called the Tuskegee Experiment.

The experiment was a World War II Army Air Corps program “created to determine whether African-Americans had the intelligence, courage and skills to fly, maintain and support combat aircraft,” said Col. James Walker, who gave a replica Tuskegee Airmen congressional gold medal last week to Murray’s niece, Mattie Murray, in honor of her late uncle.

Murray died in 1988, so he didn’t get to see the medal. However, his duty to his country lived on. The niece who accepted the replica medal on his behalf was herself an Air Force veteran from 1953 to 1957.

Who are the Red Tails?

The Tuskegee Airmen included pilots, navigators, bombardiers, maintenance and support staff, and all the personnel who kept the planes in the air, Walker said. They were “the best that basic training centers could produce.”

At that time, however, “many white people, a number of them prominent, did not believe coloreds had the ability to master such sophisticated equipment,” Walker said.

The Tuskegee Airmen not only proved the doubters wrong, they also made history.

Limestone’s only airman

Murray was the son of Mr. and Mrs. John Murray, born and raised on a farm in the Vaughn Hollow and Big Creek communities of Limestone County. He entered the service in 1941, the year the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States officially entered World War II. Having spent a lot of time around farm machinery, Murray was uniquely qualified to be an armament supporter for the famous Red Tails, the nickname given the Tuskegee Airmen. He would become the only Limestone County man ever to become one of the famed airmen. 

One of six brothers who served in the war, Murray was assigned to the 648th Ordnance Company in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1941.

“His job was to ensure that the planes were fully loaded with armament and ready for bombing or strafing missions in Italy or over the dangerous skies of Germany,” Walker said. “At Tuskegee and at Ramitelli, the Red Tails’ air base in Italy, he performed his duties in an outstanding manner” and was “an integral part of the armament support staff that is also recognized as Tuskegee Airmen.” 

Murray and the rest of the Red Tails “taught the world that bravery has no color,” Walker said.

In 2006, Congress voted to give the congressional gold medal to the airmen as a group, rather than as individuals. It is the most prestigious medal given to civilians, and, in this case, “to the nearly 1,000 men and women of the Tuskegee Airmen,” Walker said. “The medal is awarded for an outstanding deed or act of service to the security, prosperity and national interest of the United States of America.”