Aviation history was made at 5:30 pm on Nov. 9, 1934, when Dr. Albert E. "Bert" Forsyth landed his single-engined Lambert Monocoupe on a road in the Cable Beach area. It was the very first time a plane ever landed on the island of New Providence.

Co-pilot on this epic flight was Charles Alfred "Chief" Anderson, who earned his Private Pilots Licence in the United States in 1929 and qualified for an Air Transport Rating in 1932, making him the first black pilot to be officially recognised as achieving that level of aeronautical skill.

"Chief" — best known as the man responsible for the Tuskegee Airman of World War II — was an inductee of the Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame (1991), The International Order of the Gathering of Eagles (1990), winner of the famous Brewer Trophy (1985), and holder of many other aviation awards. An Honorary Doctorate of Science was conferred by Tuskegee University in 1988. His first love always was teaching new students to fly, and he amassed over 52,000 flying hours.

Dr. Roger Forsyth, Bert's nephew, on Thursday, May 20, at 6:00 pm,, will give a talk at the Bahamas Historical Society's museum on the corner of Elizabeth Avenue and Shirley Street about his uncle's history-making Pan-American Goodwill Flight from Atlantic City, New Jersey through Beaufort, South Carolina and Miami to New Providence, Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, all the way to British Guiana.

Bert Forsyth was born in The Bahamas but grew up in Jamaica, where his Bahamian father, Horatio Forsyth, became the Chief Engineer of the United Fruit Company's Electric Light & Ice Factory at Port Antonio.

Roger Forsyth is a grandson of Horatio Forsyth; a second great-grandnephew of James McQueen Forsyth, the Bahamian who became an Admiral in the United States Navy, a cousin of Sir Henry Taylor, Kt., Governor-General of The Bahamas from 1988-1992. Roger is author of the book, "BLACK FLIGHT - Breaking Barriers to Blacks in Aviation", highlighting his uncle's Bahamian roots.

His talk will focus on the 1934 Goodwill Flight and how so much of the impetus for the effort to overcome prejudice in the United States came from someone of British West Indian origin.

"BLACK FLIGHT" is constructed around the remarkable, many-faceted achievements of the author's Uncle Bert, who was inducted into both the New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame and the Smithsonian Air Museum.