A former Tuskegee Airman who participated in 68 missions and said he was shot at in nearly every European country has landed in Manhattan to inspire high schools students in the Bronx.

Dr. Roscoe Brown Jr., a World War II pilot in the first African American flight group, the Tuskegee Airmen, spoke yesterday to 70 students at the Bronx Aerospace High School about fighting the Nazis abroad and segregation at home.

“Sometimes to be accepted you have to prove that you can do something. And we proved that we could fly,” Dr. Brown said.

During World War II, the Tuskegee Airmen were charged with protecting bomber planes, and Dr. Brown told the students they never lost a single plane. He was the first of his fighter group to shoot down a German jet over the center of Berlin, he said.

“That was our real victory: Eliminating segregation,” Dr. Brown said. “Tuskegee Airmen later became mentors for many civil rights activists.”

The service of the Tuskegee Airmen helped end segregation in the military in 1948.

A high school sophomore, Jarius Mixon, asked Dr. Brown if he had any regrets about fighting in a war and having to kill people. Dr. Brown said the short answer was “no,” and that he did what he had to do to fight racism and prejudice.

The event is part of a speaker series organized by the Intrepid Museum’s Power of One education program. Other speakers have included a daughter of baseball legend Jackie Robinson, Sharon Robinson, Deputy Mayor Carol Robles-Román, and a former guard for the Knicks, John Starks. The program’s mission is to inspire student through role models.

“There’s always something wrong somewhere,” a freshman, Kayla Roman, said. “There’s still slavery, and child labor, and I want to do better at fighting that.”