Charles Alfred “Chief” Anderson, an aviation pioneer and instructor in the Tuskegee Airmen, will be honored with his own stamp issued by the United States Postal Service.
USPS announced the 70-cent stamp will be available on March 13. It was based on a photograph from a 1942 yearbook from the Tuskegee Institute's flight training school in Alabama. The stamp was designed by art director Phil Jordan from an original painting by illustrator Sterling Hundley.
The C. Alfred "Chief" Anderson postal stamp is the 15th in the Distinguished Americans series.
Anderson became the first black qualified as a flight instructor and commercial pilot when he got his pilot’s license in 1932, according to the National Park Service. He and Albert E. Forsythe then became the two first black pilots to make a transcontinental flight from Atlantic City to Los Angeles and back in 1933.
As an accomplished flyer, he inspired other black pilots. He taught civilian pilots at Howard University before heading Tuskegee University’s Civilian Pilot Training program in 1940.
The success of the program under his leadership helped inspire the Army Air Corps to establish a primary training program at Tuskegee University.