Brown, Willa Beatrice

Impact on the world

Became the first African American woman to earn a commercial pilot's license in the U.S. in 1937, the first woman in the country to hold both a pilot's and an aircraft mechanic's license, and in 1942 the first African American officer in the Civil Air Patrol; she co-founded the Coffey School of Aeronautics, which trained nearly 200 of the pilots who went on to become Tuskegee Airmen, while personally lobbying Congress and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, flying her own plane to Washington in full aviation uniform, to help secure Black pilots' inclusion in the Civilian Pilot Training Program.

Life & background

Born in Glasgow, Kentucky to a Native American mother and African American father, Brown earned a business degree from Indiana State Teachers College before working as a teacher and social worker, eventually settling in Chicago during the Great Depression, where Black pilots John C. Robinson and Cornelius Coffey introduced her to aviation in 1934. She earned a master mechanic's certificate in 1935 and her pilot's license in 1938, then her commercial license in 1937, making her the first African American woman to hold one in the United States. With Coffey, whom she later married, she co-founded the Coffey School of Aeronautics in 1938, one of only a handful of institutions nationwide certified to provide Black trainees for the Army Air Corps's pilot program at Tuskegee; nearly 200 of her students went on to become Tuskegee Airmen. She personally lobbied federal officials, including flying her own plane into Washington, D.C. wearing her aviation uniform to press her case directly with members of Congress, helping secure the Civilian Pilot Training Program's eventual inclusion of Black trainees, and in 1942 became the first African American officer in the Civil Air Patrol. After the Coffey School closed in 1945, she became, in 1946, the first African American woman to run for the U.S. Congress, continuing to teach in Chicago public schools until her 1971 retirement.

Sources

1. National WWII Museum; Indiana Public Media; Travel Noire; FAA historical archives; Encyclopedia.com