Willa Beatrice Brown
Willa Brownn:An American Aviator: Video from: Filmakers Library
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In 1939, Willa Brown was the first African-American woman to earn a commercial pilots license in the U.S. and the 1st African American officer in the Civil Air Patrol (CAP). She, along her husband, opened the Coffey School of Aeronautics. Her work led to Congress forming the Tuskegee Airmen squadron. She also taught in public schools in Chicago and Indiana where she loved children and fostered a love of learning and pursuit of dreams.
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“Brown really was a great leader in the push to get the ban lifted on African-American pilots in the armed forces,”-Michael Flug, an archivist for the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of black history at the Chicago Public Library.
"During the pre-WWII years, Brown and Coffey began their life-long advocacy, if not profession, toward integrating nationally-funded aviation programs to include schools owned and operated by blacks, with the ultimate goal of racially integrating the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) and the U.S. Air Force". -Giacinta Bradley Koontz Director of Maintenance Magazine
Blacks and whites learning together |
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"Jim Crow Law: Teaching. Any instructor who shall teach in any school, college or institution where members of the white and colored race are received and enrolled as pupils for instruction shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined..." (Oklahoma). S. Kennedy