Willa Brown was the first African American woman to earn a pilot license and a commercial license Skip to main content. Willa Brown. She held positions as teacher, post office clerk, secretary, and laboratory assistant in colleges. In Chicago, her fascination with aviation became a hobby first, and later her profession.
Bessie had been turned away from American flying schools because of her race and gender, and instead obtained her license in France, making headlines when she returned, and performing exhibition flights throughout the United States. Coleman's life was tragically cut short when she was killed at 34 years of age in a flying accident. Willa would later organize flyovers and flower drops to her grave in Lincoln cemetery outside of Chicago.
She also attended classes at the Curtiss-Wright Aeronautical University—the school that Robinson and Coffrey had integrated a few years prior by threatening to sue the institution.
Three years later, she received a pilot's license, making her the first African American woman in the United States to do so. Willa Brown as a young woman, standing on an airfield, between two planes. Willa used her energy and grit to promote civil rights and encourage participation in aeronautics within the African American community in Chicago and beyond. Toward this goal she teamed up with her former teacher, mentor and now husband, Cornelius R. Coffrey, and founded the Coffrey School of Aeronautics in a Chicago suburb.
The school offered both academic and hands-on education without restrictions on gender and race. It was the first Black-owned and operated private flight training academy in the United States of its sort. She was one of few women who attended Curtiss—Wright Aeronautical University where she studied aircraft maintenance and earned an aircraft mechanic's license in She earned a private pilot's license in and a commercial pilot's license in , becoming the first African American woman to earn either type of license in the United States.
Waters worked together to form the National Negro Airmen Association of America, later renamed to National Airmen's Association of America which was incorporated in Their primary mission was to attract more interest in aviation, help develop a better understanding in the field of aeronautics, and increase African American participation in both fields.
Brown was the national secretary and president of the organization's Chicago branch, and an activist for racial equality. She also took on public relations duties for the organization, and flew to colleges and spoke on the radio to get African Americans interested in flying. They established the school for the purpose of training black pilots and teaching aviation mechanics.
She also worked to disprove a Army War College study which had deemed African Americans unfit to fly. Army Air Corps as a feeder school to provide black students to its pilot training program. Nearly students from the school went on to join the Tuskeegee Airmen. She was later appointed war-training service coordinator for the Civil Aeronautics Authority.
In , Brown ran in the Republican Party primary elections for Illinois's 1st congressional district, becoming the first African American woman to run in a congressional primary election. Her campaign focused on improving the opportunities for African Americans, including creating an airport owned and used by African Americans.
Brown-Chappell died on July 18, at the age of 86 in Chicago. Washington, Publisher, ; Samuel L. Enter your email address below to received our quarterly Flightline Newsletter. Willa Brown.
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