Write It! - Willa Brown
Today is February 22, 2017 and on January 22, 1906 Willa Beatrice Brown was born. Willa Brown went on to be an aviator, lobbyist, teacher, and civil rights activist. Willa Brown was the first African-American woman to earn her pilot's license in the United States.
Brown was also the first African-American woman to run for the United States Congress, the first African-American officer in the US Civil Air Patrol, and the first woman in the United States to have both a pilot's license and a mechanic's license.
Brown and her husband Cornelius Coffey opened the Cornelius Coffey School of Aeronautics together, which was the first private flight training academy in the United States owned and operated by African Americans. At their pilot school they trained hundreds of pilots. Brown even had a role in the training of some of the Tuskegee Airmen.
Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willa_Brown
http://www.blackpast.org/aah/brown-willa-b-1906-1992
http://nkaa.uky.edu/record.php?note_id=133
http://coffeysquadron.org/about-us/cornelius-r-coffey/
http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/the-other-harlem-5922057/
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