Newport Academy middle school students met two men from our community, Tuesday afternoon, who witnessed the making of American history.
Cornelius Davis spoke of his career as a Tuskegee Airmen.
"I took care of the guns on the fighter planes,” he said. “We were segregated. I was in these all black groups."
Davis grew up in Blountstown, he left the area to complete his education.
"They didn't have a high school for black kids, so I went to Booker T. Washington in Pensacola."
Robert Stanton Jr. was going through high school during segregation.
His father was a civil rights leader who organized and served as president of the NAACP in Meridian and Picayune Mississippi.
"My father was a civil rights leader and activist in the state of Mississippi from 1959 until his death in 1995," said Stanton.
He described his father was a quiet man, so he learned about his father's civil rights work through his mother.
"He had a calling to fight for civil rights, he saw the inequalities in the country and state of Mississippi. It's what he felt he had to do."
Both speakers stressed the importance of education and knowing your history.