AU Library
In June of 1941 the first all-black unit, the 4th Aviation Squadron, was established on base with duties to provide maintenance, transportation, hospital, and mess hall support. Originally housed in tents, the Airmen were moved into permanent buildings in the 1200 area of the base near the Prison Camp, several of which are still in use today. Because African American Airmen were segregated from the rest of the base, the area where they lived was nicknamed "Shantytown" and described by a reporter as "a dusty, unpaved little ghetto in which no attempt is made to even approximate the neatness and beauty of Maxwell Field, white." Other all-black outfits at Maxwell included the 2132nd Army Air Forces (AAF) Base Unit, the 42nd AAF Base Unit, the 3817th Base Service Squadron, and the "Negro Drum and Bugle Corps" which was activated in September of 1942 to fill in when the base's white band was traveling away from Montgomery.
