Greetings!

Do you know who knows how to have fun while being of service and giving back to the community?

You guessed it. The members of TAI Chicago! We had a great group and a beautiful day to bring out our float for the City of Chicago's Memorial Day Parade on May 28th. Thanks so much to everyone who participated. (See the slide show here.)

Did you miss us on Memorial Day?
We will be out again this Saturday, June 11, starting at noon at Bult Field in Monee, IL. You won't want to miss Sandra Campbell’s One Woman Bessie Coleman Performance. Plus there will be an EAA Young Eagles Rally in the morning and a Car Show with the Chicago Crossroads Corvette Club.
President
Chicago "DODO" Chapter
Tuskegee Airmen

The Origin of the “Moniker”
in our Chapter Name
So how did we get to be called the Chicago “DODO” Chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen?
Thanks Due to Mr. Ahmed A. "Sammy" Rayner, Jr.

The word “DODO” was originally an ironic sobriquet the airmen used in the 1950s to describe the contrast between the post-war employment opportunities they expected and the reality they subsequently experienced.

These WWII veterans and aviators, who possessed superior flying experience, were unable to find jobs in the burgeoning aviation industry of the 1950s and so, like the now-extinct bird from whom the name was borrowed, they had become “flightless”.
In 1955, Original Tuskegee Airman and one of the founders of the Chicago Chapter, Mr. Ahmed A. (Sammy) Rayner, Jr., was honored by his fellow Airmen from all over the country, by naming him “Mr. DODO”. This was in recognition of his decade-long efforts to preserve the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen by creating a national organization with this collective purpose.

The Chicago “DODO” Story from Our Chapter Newsletter, 1956

“MR DODO”

By Dr. William T. Jackson

The Dodo Club of Chicago is both happy and proud that one of its founders has been honored as “Mr. Dodo” by the visiting delegates to the First National Reunion.

From its inception in 1945 at Godman Field, Kentucky to the realization of a National Organization, the Dodo Club has been the “Baby” of one “Sammy” Rayner. He nursed its infancy, guided its growing pains and with fatherly devotion supported and disciplined its adolescence. In short, “Sammy’s fire of enthusiasm and dedication to the perpetuation of the co-fraternity we so jealously acquired during the epoch of "Spookwaffe" has prepared the Chicago Dodos to take their place among the adult National Dodo Club.

In that such dedication of purpose was obvious to Dodos in the distant parts of the country, as manifested by their honor to “Sammy,” is indicative of the far-reaching effect of his sincerity of matters Dodo.

We add our salute and offer “Mr. Dodo, USA”, Mr. Ahmed A. Rayner Jr., the realization of a ten-year dream: National Dodo Clubs, a challenge to all Dodos.

May the next National Reunion present competition for a like honor.

THE DODO CLUB
4141 Cottage Grove Ave.
Chicago 15, Illinois