Ayesha Roscoe

The Sunday Story team includes Andrew Mambo and our senior supervising producer, Liana Simstrom.

Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi.

I'm Aisha Roscoe, and Up First is back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week.

Until then, have a great rest of your weekend.

I'm Ayesha Roscoe, and you're listening to The Sunday Story from Up First, where we go beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story.

Today, the Tuskegee Airmen are celebrated as American heroes, Black men who fought in World War II for a country that was still brutally segregated.

Eventually, these men who shattered the color line as combat pilots would be awarded some of the nation's highest honors.

In 2007, the Tuskegee Airmen were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President George W. Bush.

But some never got to see those tributes because they never made it home.

And their families felt they were forgotten by the U.S.

government.

NPR investigative correspondent Cheryl W. Thompson is the author of a book that published earlier this year.

It's called Forgotten Souls, The Search for the Lost Tuskegee Airmen.

It tells the stories of 27 black airmen who went missing during flights overseas, leaving their families forever changed and still looking for answers.

When we come back, I sit down with Cheryl to talk about her personal connection to the airmen and what she learned over years of research about who these men were.

We'll be right back.

We're back with The Sunday Story.

I'm here with Cheryl W. Thompson.

Cheryl, welcome to the show.

And thank you for being here.