By JENNIFER MOONSONG
Glasgow News 1
Willa Beatrice Brown was born in Glasgow in 1906, and was the first female African American to earn her pilot’s license.
NATIONAL ARCHIVE PHOT
Willa Beatrice Brown, born in Glasgow, Kentucky in 1906, went on to be the first African American woman to receive her pilot’s license. An impressive accolade to be sure, it was not Willa’s first or only accomplishment. Following the receipt of her license in 1937, she married her former flight instructor, Cornelius Coffey in 1939. Together the pair founded the Cornelius Coffey School of Aeronautics, the first black-owned and -operated private flight training academy in the U.S.
From that School, many pilots were trained. Some of those pilots later became part of the pilots known as the legendary “Tuskegee Airmen.” Brown’s efforts were directly responsible for the squadron’s creation, which is noted as a milestone leading to the integration of the military just shy of a decade later. Also in 1939, Brown was cited in the 76th Congressional Record for achievements in aviation and Time magazine profiled Brown.
For an African American woman of her era, Brown more than overcame the odds stacked against her. She surpassed even the men of her generation and field in accomplishments.
She was known for her striking appearance and forthright personality.
Enoch P. Waters, well-known Chicago journalist, wrote this about Brown:
“When Willa Brown, a shapely young brown skin woman, wearing white jodhpurs, a form fitting white jacket and white boots, strode into our newsroom, in 1936, she made such a stunning appearance that all the typewriters suddenly went silent…Unlike most visitors, she wasn’t at all bewildered. She had a confident bearing and there was an undercurrent of determination in her husky voice as she announced, not asked, that she wanted to see me.”
Posthumously in 2002, Brown was named one of the hundred most influential women in aviation in the world over. In 2003, she was inducted into the Kentucky Aviation Hall of Fame.
She died in 1992, at the age of 86 in Chicago.
Information taken from the Kentucky Commission for Human Rights, Wikipedia and The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia.
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