The local chapter of Tuskegee Airmen will participate in events this month honoring the service of African-Americans in World War II.

On Saturday, the Artis-Baham-Goldsborough Chapter of Tuskegee Airmen Inc. will staff a booth at Fort DeRussy in Waikiki for the Army Museum’s Living History Day, which will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The event will feature exhibits of military weapons, equipment and insignia, and people dressed in historical military uniforms of various time periods.

On May 21, Philip Baham, an original Tuskegee maintenance chief who lives in Hawaii, will be presented with a replica of the Congressional Gold Medal approved by Congress in 2007. The presentation will be made by Rear Adm. Frank Ponds, commander of Navy Region Hawaii and Naval Surface Group Middle Pacific. The ceremony will be held at 3 p.m. at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

The ceremony will also honor the memory of the 163 people who were killed and 396 injured on May 21, 1944, in explosions at Pearl Harbor’s West Loch. Many of those killed were African-Americans.

The incident occurred when a ship filled with gas and ammunition exploded, sinking six other ships preparing to leave to launch an assault on the Japanese in the Mariana Islands.

Tuskegee Airmen were in the Army Air Corps program to train African-Americans to fly and maintain combat aircraft. The Tuskegee Airmen included pilots, navigators, bombardiers, maintenance and support staff, instructors, and all the personnel who kept the planes in the air. The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the United States armed forces.

Before 1940, African-Americans were barred from flying for the U.S. military. Civil rights organizations and the black press exerted pressure that resulted in the formation of an all-African-American pursuit squadron based in Tuskegee, Ala., in 1941. They became known as the Tuskegee Airmen.

Formally, they formed the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the U.S. Army Air Corps.

For more information, email public affairs officer Un Young Pak, Artis-Baham-Goldsborough Chapter, Tuskegee Airmen Inc., at unyoungpak@gmail.com.