Bessie "Queen Bess" Coleman, the First Black and Native American Woman to get a Pilot License.

Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman was born on January 26, 1892, in Atlanta, Texas, the tenth of thirteen children to sharecroppers George Coleman, who was mostly Cherokee and part African-American, and Susan, who was African-American. When Coleman was two years old, her family moved to Waxahachie, Texas, where she lived until age 23. Coleman began attending school in Waxahachie at the age of six. She had to walk four miles each day to her segregated, one-room school, where she loved to read and established herself as an outstanding math student.

She completed all eight grades in that school. Every year, Coleman's routine of school, chores, and church was interrupted by the cotton harvest. In 1901, George Coleman left his family. He returned to Oklahoma, or Indian Territory, as it was then called, to find better opportunities, but Susan and her family did not go along. At the age of 12, Bessie was accepted into the Missionary Baptist Church School on scholarship. When she turned eighteen, she took her savings and enrolled in the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University (now called Langston University) in Langston, Oklahoma. She completed one term before her money ran out and she returned home.

In 1916, at the age of 23, she moved to Chicago, Illinois, where she lived with her brothers. In Chicago, she worked as a manicurist at the White Sox Barber Shop. There, she heard stories from pilots returning home from World War I about flying during the war. She took a second job at a chili parlor to procure money faster to become a pilot. American flight schools admitted neither women nor blacks. Robert S. Abbott, founder and publisher of the Chicago Defender, encouraged her to study abroad. Coleman received financial backing from banker Jesse Binga and the Defender.

Coleman took a French-language class at the Berlitz school in Chicago and then traveled to Paris on November 20, 1920, so she could earn her pilot license. She learned to fly in a Nieuport 82 biplane with "a steering system that consisted of a vertical stick the thickness of a baseball bat in front of the pilot and a rudder bar under the pilot's feet." On June 15, 1921, Coleman became the first Negro and American Indian woman to earn an aviation pilot's license and an international aviation license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.

Determined to polish her skills, Coleman spent the next two months taking lessons from a French ace pilot near Paris and in September 1921, she sailed for New York. She became a media sensation when she returned to the United States.

“The air is the only place free from prejudices. I knew we had no aviators, neither men nor women, and I knew the Race needed to be represented along this most important line, so I thought it my duty to risk my life to learn aviation.”                                                                                                                                 — Bessie Coleman

With the age of commercial flight still a decade or more in the future, Coleman quickly realized that in order to make a living as a civilian aviator, she would have to become a "barnstorming" stunt flier and perform for paying audiences. But to succeed in this highly competitive arena, she would need advanced lessons and a more extensive repertoire. Returning to Chicago, Coleman could not find anyone willing to teach her, so in February 1922, she sailed again for Europe. She spent the next two months in France, completing an advanced course in aviation, then left for the Netherlands to meet with Anthony Fokker, one of the world's most distinguished aircraft designers. She also traveled to Germany, where she visited the Fokker Corporation and received additional training from one of the company's chief pilots. She then returned to the United States to launch her career in exhibition flying.

"Queen Bess," as she was known, was a highly popular draw for the next five years. Invited to important events and often interviewed by newspapers, she was admired by both blacks and whites. She primarily flew Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplanes and other aircraft that had been army surplus aircraft left over from the war. She made her first appearance in an American airshow on September 3, 1922, at an event honoring veterans of the all-black 369th Infantry Regiment of World War I. Held at Curtiss Field on Long Island near New York City and sponsored by her friend Abbott and the Chicago Defender newspaper, the show billed Coleman as "the world's greatest woman flier" and featured aerial displays by eight other American ace pilots and a jump by black parachutist Hubert Julian. Six weeks later, she returned to Chicago to deliver a stunning demonstration of daredevil maneuvers—including figure eights, loops, and near-ground dips to a large and enthusiastic crowd at the Checkerboard Airdrome (now the grounds of Hines Veterans Administration Medical Center, Hines, Illinois, Loyola Hospital, Maywood, and nearby Cook County Forest Preserve).

But the thrill of stunt flying and the admiration of cheering crowds were only part of Coleman's dream. Coleman never lost sight of her childhood vow to one day "amount to something." As a professional aviatrix, Coleman would often be criticized by the press for her opportunistic nature and the flamboyant style she brought to her exhibition flying. However, she also quickly gained a reputation as a skilled and daring pilot who would stop at nothing to complete a difficult stunt. In Los Angeles, she broke a leg and three ribs when her plane stalled and crashed on February 22, 1923.

In the 1920s, in Orlando, Florida, on a speaking tour, she met the Rev. Hezekiah Hill and his wife Viola, community activists who invited her to stay with them at the parsonage of Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church on Washington Street in the neighborhood of Parramore. A local street was renamed "Bessie Coleman" Street in her honor in 2013. The couple, who treated her as a daughter, persuaded her to stay, and Coleman opened a beauty shop in Orlando to earn extra money to buy her own plane.

Through her media contacts, she was offered a role in a feature-length film titled Shadow and Sunshine, to be financed by the African American Seminole Film Producing Company. She gladly accepted, hoping the publicity would help to advance her career and provide her with some of the money she needed to establish her own flying school. But upon learning that the first scene in the movie required her to appear in tattered clothes, with a walking stick and a pack on her back, she refused to proceed. "Clearly ... [Bessie's] walking off the movie set was a statement of principle. Opportunist, though she was about her career, she was never an opportunist about race. She had no intention of perpetuating the derogatory image most whites had of most blacks," wrote Doris Rich.

Coleman would not live long enough to establish a school for young black aviators but her pioneering achievements served as an inspiration for a generation of African-American men and women. "Because of Bessie Coleman," wrote Lieutenant William J. Powell in Black Wings (1934), dedicated to Coleman, "we have overcome that which was worse than racial barriers. We have overcome the barriers within ourselves and dared to dream." Powell served in a segregated unit during World War I, and tirelessly promoted the cause of black aviation through his book, his journals, and the Bessie Coleman Aero Club, which he founded in 1929.

On April 30, 1926, Coleman was in Jacksonville, Florida. She had recently purchased a Curtiss JN-4 (Jenny) in Dallas. Her mechanic and publicity agent, 24-year-old William D. Wills, flew the plane from Dallas in preparation for an airshow but had to make three forced landings along the way because the plane had been so poorly maintained. Upon learning this, Coleman's friends and family did not consider the aircraft safe and implored her not to fly it. On take-off, Wills was flying the plane with Coleman in the other seat. She had not put on her seatbelt because she was planning a parachute jump for the next day and wanted to look over the cockpit sill to examine the terrain. About ten minutes into the flight, the plane unexpectedly went into a dive and then a spin. Coleman was thrown from the plane at 2,000 feet and died instantly when she hit the ground. William Wills was unable to regain control of the plane, and it plummeted to the ground. Wills died upon impact, and the plane exploded and burst into flames. Although the wreckage of the plane was badly burned, it was later discovered that a wrench used to service the engine had jammed the controls. Coleman was 34 years old.

Honors

• Chicago declared May 2, 1992, Bessie Coleman Day.
• A public library in Chicago was named in Coleman's honor, as are roads at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Oakland International Airport in Oakland, California, Tampa International Airport in Florida, and at Germany's Frankfurt International Airport.

  

  The Coleman Public Library at 731 East 63rd Street in Chicago, Illinois.

• A memorial plaque has been placed by the Chicago Cultural Center at the location of her former home, 41st, and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Chicago, and, following tradition for African-American aviators, flowers were dropped during flyovers of her grave at Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Island, Cook County, Illinois.
  

• Chicago's O'Hare Airport named a heavily used access road to Bessie Coleman Drive in 1990.
• Honored with the naming of the Coleman (Bessie) Park at 5445 South Drexel Avenue in Chicago.
• A roundabout leading to Nice Airport in the South of France was named after her in March 2016, and there are streets in Poitiers and the 20th Arrondissement of Paris named after her.

• Bessie Coleman Middle School in Cedar Hill, Texas is named for her.

• Bessie Coleman Boulevard in Waxahachie, Texas, where she lived as a child, is named in her honor.

• B. Coleman Aviation, a fixed-base operator based at Gary/Chicago International Airport, is named in her honor.

• Several Bessie Coleman Scholarship Awards have been established for high school seniors planning careers in aviation.

• The U.S. Postal Service issued a 32-cent stamp honoring Coleman in 1995. The Bessie Coleman Commemorative is the 18th in the U.S. Postal Service Black Heritage series.
  

• In 2006, she was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame.

• In 2012, a bronze plaque with Coleman's likeness was installed on the front doors of Paxon School for Advanced Studies located on the site of the Jacksonville, Florida, airfield where Coleman's fatal flight took off.

• Coleman was honored with a toy character in season 5, episode 11a of the children's animated television program Doc McStuffins.

• She was placed No. 14 on Flying's 2013 list of the "51 Heroes of Aviation."

• On January 25, 2015, Orlando renamed West Washington Street to recognize the street's most accomplished residents.

• On January 26, 2017, the 125th anniversary of her birth, a Google Doodle was posted in her honor.

• The Bessie Coleman U.S. Currency concept silver dollar coin.

The Bessie Coleman Concept Coin was created in 1998 as a recommendation for the new dollar coin. At the time the concept coin was designed, nobody knew when the United States Mint's small silver dollars would first be issued. So, the design was given a “2001” date. If this coin design had been selected, Bessie Coleman would have been the first Black woman to be featured solo on United States currency. The Bessie Coleman proposal came in second place behind Sacagawea.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

The White Squirrels of Olney Illinois.

Why are there so many white squirrels in Onley, Illinois? There are two theories that offer some historical perspective.

The William Yates Stroup Theory

While William Yates Stroup was hunting squirrels in the woods near his home in the southeast Olney Township he saw a gray squirrel run into a nest and shot the den killing the mother and knocking out two pure white baby squirrels. He put them into the pockets of his game bag and took them home with him, turning them over to his sons, George and Era Strop who raised them by hand feeding them milk by a spoon. The little squirrels lived, thrived and grew well. That fall farmer Stroup brought the squirrels to Olney and presented them to the Jasper Banks Saloon (JAP's Place) and displayed them in his window. They attracted attention and were a fine drawing card for JAP's Place. 

The albinos were finally released when the Illinois legislature passed a law prohibiting the confinement of wildlife, which included squirrels. The squirrels were taken to Oakwood, the home of Thomas Tippit commonly called Tippit's Woods and released. The Tippit residence was located at 802 N. Silver Street, but has since been torn down.

The George W. Ridgely Theory

George W. Ridgely moved to a farm about six miles southeast of Sumner, In 1899 George discovered a cream-colored squirrel and a white squirrel playing on his farm near Sumner. He tried to capture them but was unsuccessful. Finally he asked his neighbor John Robinson to help him, but they were unsuccessful. Finally the men constructed a box-like trap and a cage eight feet by six feet. They captured them and were able to raise several litters before bringing a pair to Olney in 1902. Mr. Ridgely sold the pair to Jasper "Jap" C. Banks for $5 each. Mr. Banks made a green box for his albinos and displayed them in his saloon window, hoping they would attract customers and cause them to go inside and get a better look and have a drink.

When the Illinois state legislature passed a law prohibiting the containment of wild animals, Mr. Ridgely released all his squirrels from his cage near Sumner. They wandered in his woods and neighboring lands, and the squirrels were no longer to be found.

Jap Banks also disposed of his squirrels, giving the pair to the sons of Thomas Tippit Sr., a former mayor of Olney. Thomas Tippit had a woods near his home then located at 802 Silver Street His sons placed the open green box in one of the nearby trees, liberating the squirrels.

Thomas Tippit Jr. and his brother watched the male white squirrel leave the cage. Just then a large female fox squirrel attacked the male albino, "tearing him to shreds" and dropping him to the ground. Tom threw something at the fox squirrel and drove her into her den. They he ran to the house and got a shotgun. His father had allowed him to shoot it for the first time the day before. Fourteen-year-old Tom drew aim and shot the fox squirrel as it approached the white female. The albino produced a litter of all white squirrels establishing the Olney albino colony.

About 1941, there were 800 white squirrels. In the mid-1970's, John Stencel, instructor at Olney Central College, received a small grant from the Illinois Academy of Science to study the white squirrels. 

A squirrel count is held each fall. Both white and gray squirrels are counted in addition to cats. The number of squirrels has dropped causing concern. When the white squirrels dip below 100, Stencel said, they are concerned about genetic drifts, a biological force that speeds up the extinction of a small population. 

In 1997, the Olney City Council amended its ordinance which disallowed dogs from running at large to include cats. The 1997 squirrel count realized a decrease in cats. Dr. Stencel is hopeful this will have a positive affect on the white squirrel population. 

In an effort to help the white squirrel population, City Clerk Belinda Henton has obtained a permit to rehabilitate wildlife from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife Resources. Residents are asked to contact Mrs. Henton when they discover white squirrels that have been abandoned or hurt.

White Squirrels and the Law

White squirrels have the right-of-way on all public streets, sidewalks, and thoroughfares in Olney, and there is a $750 fine for accidentally running one over.

The police department badges and squad cars have a picture of a white squirrel on it. 

The white squirrel has proved to be an enduring symbol of Olnean pride, and stands as Olney's most defining feature.

Albino or white squirrels are on the endangered species list since 2014.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Chicago's Other German U-Boat, the UC-97.

We're all familiar with the World War II Nazi Germany U-505 submarine, which was captured by the U.S. Navy on June 4, 1944. The U-505 was donated to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago in 1954 and is still on public display.

This is the story of Chicago's other U-Boat, the UC-97. On June 7, 1921, the first explosive shells fired on the Great Lakes since Admiral Perry tangled with the British on Lake Erie in September of 1813 were directed toward the German U-Boat UC-97, sinking it in Lake Michigan about 20 miles east of Fort Sheridan, Illinois.

The UC-97 was one of six U-boats that the Navy received as part of the armistice agreement, which ended WW I on November 11, 1918. The UC-97 crossed the Atlantic in the spring of 1919 to participate in a ceremony in New York City that honored the victims of submarine attacks during the war.

Due to Engine problems, the UC-97 would be escorted from New York to Halifax, Canada by USS Bushnell (AS-2), and then handed off to the naval tugboat USS Iroquois (AT-46) for the remainder of its journey to the mouth of the Canadian controlled St. Lawrence canal system. It is through this system that UC-97 would reach the Great Lakes. 

WWI German subs, UB-88, UB-148, & UC-97, surrendered to the Allies in 1919.

Surrendered German U-boats were at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on April 29, 1919.

From there, it transited the Great Lakes until August when engine trouble laid it up at Municipal Pier, today's Navy Pier, in Chicago.

Inside a German WW I UC-Class Submarine.

The UC-97 spent the winter of 1920 on the North Branch of the Chicago River, where the U-boat received its post office address: Cherry Avenue and Weed Street (Today that would be at the north end of Goose Island, opposite the Whole Foods store on Kingsbury). 

For a time, the Navy considered a more permanent and dry change of address, perhaps giving the submarine to the Field Museum or putting it in Lincoln or Grant Park. Ultimately, the Navy decided that the terms of the armistice treaty required sinking its prize. The UC-97 was in no condition to go very far, so she was towed out into Lake Michigan to be used as a target on June 7, 1921, by the Navy reserve vessel USS Wilmette.

Ironically, the gunboat that sank the German UC-97 was the USS Wilmette which was a gunboat training ship for naval reservists. It was repaired and refitted from the Great Lakes passenger steamer, the SS Eastland, on which 844 people lost their lives when it turned over in the Chicago River on July 24, 1915.

The Navy made a big production out of sinking the UC-97. The first shot from one of Wilmette’s four 4-inch guns was fired by Gunner’s Mate J. O. Sabin, who had been credited with firing the first U.S. Navy shot in the Atlantic during WWI. The last shot was fired by Gunner’s Mate, A. H. Anderson, who had fired the first torpedo at a U-boat during the war. After being hit by 13 4-inch rounds of 18 fired, the UC-97 sank. The famous ship was then immediately forgotten for decades.

Photo of UC-97 as viewed in the monitor during the recovery expedition.

In August of 1992, salvage partners Taras Lyssenko and Al Olson of A and T Recovery located the submarine. It drifted considerably from where it went down, and for years no one could locate it. The costs of raising and restoring the submarine, which some estimate to be near 50 million dollars, along with the shaky legal question of who would have the legal rights to the sub when raised, have kept it at the bottom of the lake.

Size Comparison
The UC-97 measured 185 feet in length, weighed 491 tons while surfaced, and had a crew of 32. By comparison, the U-505, manufactured some 20 years later, was 252 feet long, weighed 1,120 tons, and had a crew of 59.

World War II Nazi Germany U-505 submarine.

The USS Seawolf, the Navy's latest generation, a nuclear-powered attack submarine, is near twice as long and weighs more than 16 times as much as the UC-97, with a crew complement of almost four times greater.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

A Proposal to House the Entire 1893 World's Fair... within One Structure... on Lake Michigan!

The structure (tent-like) that architect Edward S. Jenison proposed for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition would have had to be enormous to house the entire World’s Fair. Jenison must have taken Daniel Burnham’s recommendation to "make no little plans" literally.

CLICK FOR FULL-SIZE IMAGE

Galleries, 75 feet wide.
Entrances from outside only on first gallery.
Under first gallery six tracks for railroad exhibits.
First gallery a grand boulevard for driveway, cafes, etc., etc.
Second gallery for race track 1 3/4 miles long.
Twenty-four stairways from first gallery down to main floor.
Grand Canal, 150 feet wide, with 24 bridges.
Picture galleries in fire-proof vaults under high part of amphitheater.
Amphitheater in center, 600 feet in diameter, 60,000 seats.

Jenison’s round, tent-like structure would have been 3,000 feet wide – that’s just over 1/2  mile. The center steel tower 1,492 feet high (the year Christopher Columbus landed in North America) with an elevator leading to an observatory at 1,000 feet. That’s only 8 feet shorter than the John Hancock Building's highest antenna tip!

Cables radiating from the center mast to a three-story-high brick wall would support the glass and corrugated iron roof encompassing over 160 acres. An amphitheater around the center pole would seat 60,000 people.

Interior Illustration

And it wasn’t just the size and height that was ambitious. Jenison planned for the whole thing to be built, not on land, but in the lake near the shoreline off Jackson Park and supported on submerged piles. Water would be drawn up through the central tower and distributed over the roof to keep the building cool. He also included plans for an interior canal for a naval exhibit. Railroad exhibits would run on six tracks around the inter-perimeter of the building.

The green circle is exactly 3000 feet in diameter.

Architect Jenison estimates that his building would cost $6,000,000. But in reality, it would come closer to $20,000,000 in the 1890s (that's $553,779,150 in today's dollars).

Tim Samuelson, the City of Chicago's Cultural Affairs and Special Events Coordinator was familiar with this plan. He describes it as a “pipe dream” that captured a lot of people’s imagination. Jenison proposed it in the spring of 1890 when planning for the Fair actually began.

Engineering experts questioned whether it was even possible to build it. Some said that in theory, it might be, but most architects believed that the technology wasn’t available yet.

As for the architect, in Tim Samuelson’s words, Jenison was probably kind of “out there.” He monopolized at least one committee meeting with his idea, and one Fair planner stated, “Mr. Jenison calls at headquarters daily.”

Ultimately, Jenison’s plan was rejected when fair Officials decided to build the World's Fair on land in Jackson Park rather than in Lake Michigan.

It was deemed that a building like this would never satisfy exhibitors. as most would want to build their own structures. It would not show exhibits to the best advantage, would mix things up in an incongruous manner—artworks, statues, machinery, goods, locomotives, thrashing machines, and bric-a-brac, etc., that would distract, confuse, and tire the visitors.

George B. Post’s Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Building
at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.

But the Columbian Exposition still managed to create the largest building in the world at the time: the colossus Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Building, designed by George B. Post.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Willa Beatrice Brown was an aviator, teacher, lobbyist, a civil rights activist and a woman of influence.

Willa Beatrice Brown (1906-1992) as the first black female to become a licensed pilot in the United States. She was also the first black officer of the Civil Air Patrol, and the first woman in the United States to possess both a mechanic’s license and commercial license in aviation.

When Willa Brown was born in 1906, the Wright Brothers had been flying for just over three years. By the time Brown began taking flight lessons, in the mid 1930s, there were between 700 to 800 licensed female pilots. Brown was also an activist. Her contributions to the growing field of aviation led to many changes, including the integration of the United States military.

Brown was greatly influenced by Bessie “Queen Bess” Coleman, the first black female pilot. Due to racial and gender discrimination in the United States, Coleman was forced to obtain her license in France, through the Ecole d’Aviation de Freres Caudron, becoming the first black female pilot in the world. By the time Brown began to take flying lessons in 1934, several women, including Louise Thaden, Katherine Cheung (the first woman of Chinese ancestry to obtain a license), Phoebe Fairgrave Omelie, and Ann Morrow Lindbergh, had broken the gender barrier in the United States. Nevertheless Brown was the first black woman to break the racial barrier and obtain an aviator’s license in the United States.

Willa Beatrice Brown was born to Eric B. Brown, a minister, and Hallie Mae Carpenter Brown on January 26, 1906, in Glasgow, Kentucky. The family first moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, when Willa was six years old and then to Terre Haute, where she received most of her schooling. In 1923 Brown, who was a good student, graduated from Wiley High School. She then attended Indiana State Teachers College earning a bachelor’s degree in business, in 1927. Immediately upon graduation, Brown found employment as a teacher in Gary, Indiana, where she met and married her first husband, Wilbur Hardaway, an alderman; the marriage was short lived. In 1932 Brown moved to Chicago, where she found employment in the public school system.

Brown’s years in Chicago were extremely active. After teaching for two years, she returned to school, attending Northwestern University, where she received an MA in business in 1937. During her student days, she taught and worked at a variety of jobs.

She worked as a secretary to Calar Paul Page, director of the Chicago Relief Administration and as a social services worker for the Cook County Bureau of Public Welfare. She was also a clerk for the U.S. Department of Immigration and Naturalization and for the United States Post Office and was secretary to Horace Cayton. On top of all these activities, Brown began taking flying lessons from Fred Schumacher at the Harlem Airport in Chicago. In 1935 she earned a masters certificate in aviation mechanics from the Aeronautical University and later joined the Challenger Air Pilots Association (CAPA), one of the first black pilot organizations. The CAPA was founded by Colonel John C. Robinson, one of Brown’s flight instructors, who was one of the first black graduates of Curtiss Wright Aeronautical University. It was at the Harlem airport that Brown met Cornelius R. Coffey, an instructor and a mechanic, whom she married and with whom she shared her passion for flying.

Brown participated in various flying events such as the Memorial flight for Bessie Coleman and air shows that featured entertaining flight demonstrations. She was also a shameless self-promoter by many accounts. One such account, reprinted on the Aeronautic Learning Laboratory for Science, Technology, and Research website, involved Brown seeking news coverage for a “negro” air show in 1936. Brown, who, evidently was tall, very good looking, and often wore the typical flight apparel of the day—a jacket, jodphurs, and boots—decided the best way to get the media interested in the show was to go to the media first instead of getting them to come and see her. Hence, she visited the Chicago Defender newspaper office. She was so striking and had such a strong presence that everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at her. She announced who she was, stating that she was an “aviatrix” and described the upcoming show. Her tactic resulted in an audience between two to three hundred people. The event was also covered by Enoch P. Waters, a journalist who, in 1939, along with Brown and Coffey, co-founded the National Airmen’s Association of America (NAAA), an organization established and designed to facilitate the acceptance of blacks into the United States Air Force. Waters continued to cover most of Brown’s recruitment activities for several years, with the support of the Chicago Defender’s editor, Robert Abbott.

On June 22, 1938, Brown earned her pilot’s license. The following year, not only did she help found the NAAA, but she also began to teach flight lessons through the Work Project Administration’s adult education program. In 1940 Brown received her Civil Aeronautics Administration ground school instructor’s rating. In addition, she and Coffey founded the Coffey School of Aeronautics. Brown handled the administrative side of the business and taught many of the flight classes. In addition, she ran Brown’s Lunch Room, a small restaurant at the Harlem Airport. During the early 1940s Brown also taught aviation mechanics for the Chicago Board of Education.

Having established herself in the aviation business, Brown, who became the president of the Chicago branch of the NAAA, lobbied the U.S. government to integrate the U.S. Army Air Corp and to include blacks into the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP). In 1940 Congress authorized the admission of blacks into civilian flight training programs, and Brown was appointed coordinator for the CPTP in Chicago. She also helped organize Squadron 613-6 of the Civil Air Patrol, earning the rank of lieutenant, which made her the first black officer in the Civil Air Patrol. Within the following five years, Brown trained over two hundred pilots, some of whom became part of the 99th Pursuit Squadron at Tuskegee Institute, also known as the Tuskegee Airmen.

The Coffey School of Aeronautics closed in 1945, shortly after the end of World War II. Brown, a tireless recruiter, went on to establish flight schools for children. She remained an activist, both in aviation organizations and politically, running for a U.S. Congressional seat in 1946, 1948, and in 1950. Although Brown did not win these elections, she attained another status as doing something “first”—she was the first black woman to run for Congress. In 1955 Brown married her third husband, the Reverend J.H. Chappell. During her marriage to Chappell, Brown became very active in the Westside Community Church in Chicago. She taught in the Chicago public school system until 1971, when she was sixty-five years old.

The following year, Brown was appointed to the FAA’s Women’s Advisory Board for her contributions to the aviation industry. Willa Brown did not have any children. She died of a stroke in Chicago on July 18, 1992 at the age of 86. She is buried at Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago.

Brown was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award, posthumously, by the Indiana State University Alumni Association in 2010.

Compiled by Neil Gale,Ph.D.