This picture illustrates the beginning of the African-American motorcycle culture, started through the military during world war II.
These guys are the famous Tuskegee Airmen which braved racism from both sides of the combatants and still won the respect of their German enemies and fellow Americans.
Nearly 1000 of those fly boys flew P-51 Mustang.
Even for those pilots, the thrill of speed and freedom of motorcycle was hard to resist; many of them rode bikes on free time. After the war in Europe ended in 1945, black airmen returned to the US soil, and faced continued racism and bigotry despite their outstanding war records. Many of them wanted to keep flying, but were denied because of the segregated laws. So they turned back to the thrill of the motorcycling.
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