Mississippi Aviation Heritage Museum

JOHN C. ROBINSON BROWN CONDOR ASSOCIATION

Honoring Mississippi Aviators

The Mississippi Aviation Museum will highlight the state’s rich aviation history, and will be filled with STEM-interactive exhibits that includes 14 touch tables teaching aviation, a flight simulator, live mechanics working on and renovating airplanes and a theater the looks like the interior of an airliner. Opening scheduled spring or summer 2020.

John C Robinson

John C Robinson, a pioneering black Mississippi aviator and native of Gulfport, undertook a personal struggle against the rising tide of Italian fascist aggression in 1935 through enlistment in the Ethiopian Air Force of Emperor Haile Selassie.  


Well before U.S. entry into World War II, John C. Robinson won a national and international reputation as "The Brown Condor" for his heroic efforts against invading Italian forces in the skies over Ethiopia.  When Italian aggression finally crushed Ethiopian resistance, Robinson returned to the U.S. where he became a nationally known advocate for the cause of Ethiopian freedom, and a tireless promoter of aviation in the African American Community.

Robinson's efforts were instrumental in the conception and creation of the aviation training program at Tuskegee Institute, which paved the way for the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II fame.

If these walls could talk...