by Demress Stockman

I have always been fascinated by explorers and pioneers in history. I think about their incredible courage and persistence to go where nobody else they knew had gone, their desire to know and accomplish things, and their visions for the future that must have driven them in the face of incredible obstacles.

Black History Month and Women’s History Month make up a two-month period of time for me to reflect on the achievements of people who have not always been recognized in mainstream history books, people who had a vision for a different future and paved the way for others to follow.

Each year, I try to choose a theme to research such as sports, politics, scientists, inventors, Minnesota, etc. My favorite theme by far was aviation. I was inspired to research black aviators after watching the movie “Red Tails” about the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II. Who paved the way for them? I wondered. Researching the answer to this simple question was a key that opened the door to the precious gift of stories about many inspiring people. I was pleasantly surprised to learn about three remarkable women who were major characters in the promotion of the emerging field of aviation within the black community and the eventual desegregation of the Civilian Pilot Training Program, the Civil Air Patrol, and the U.S. Air Force. Their names were Bessie Coleman, Willa Brown, and Janet Harmon Waterford Bragg. Moreover, they helped redefine what was possible for women and for people of color.

Bessie Coleman “Queen Bess” (1892 – 1926)

Bessie Coleman was the first black woman to earn a pilot’s license, and she dreamed of opening her own flight school. She was one of 13 children born into a family of sharecroppers in Texas and moved to Chicago when financial hardship forced her to drop out of college after one semester. She went to beauty school and worked as a manicurist. When one of her brothers who had served in World War I told her about female pilots in France, she decided that she wanted to become a pilot. She was an avid reader and believed that the emerging field of aviation was the key to upward mobility. Unfortunately, she was denied entry into every flying school she applied to in the United States. Realizing that she had to move to France, she took a better-paying job managing a chili parlor, saved money, and took French language classes. She was eventually accepted to France’s most famous flight school and earned her pilot’s license in 1922.

When she returned to the United States, she specialized in stunt flying and parachuting, and she earned a living performing aerial tricks with planes she borrowed from other people. It was dangerous work and her thrilling performances drew large crowds. She refused to perform unless the audiences were desegregated and all attendees could enter through the same doors. She worked hard towards her dream of purchasing planes and opening her own flight school by giving lectures, doing aerial performances, taking people on plane rides, and operating a beauty shop.

Tragically, she was killed during a test flight of one of the planes she worked so hard to purchase. A loose wrench was found to have jammed the controls and her mechanic lost control of the plane during the test. In 1929, William J. Powell established the Bessie Coleman Aero Club in her memory. This club and others like it would continue the work of promoting aviation that Bessie Coleman aspired to do.

Willa Brown (1906 – 1992)

Although Bessie Coleman was unable to obtain her pilot’s license in the United States during the 1920s because she was a black woman, Willa Brown was able to achieve that goal by 1938. Brown was born in Kentucky and graduated from high school in Terra Haute, Indiana. She attended Indiana State Teachers College and worked as a teacher before taking a job as a social worker in Chicago. It was there that she decided she wanted to learn to fly. The same year she earned her pilot’s license, she earned an MBA from Northwestern University.

Her aviation and business skills were put to good use as a tireless promoter of the aviation industry and as a successful administrator of aeronautical training programs. One day in 1936, she walked into the Chicago Defender newspaper office wearing white jodhpurs, jacket, and boots to drum up publicity for an African American air show to be held at Harlem Field. She co-founded the Coffey School of Aeronautics with her then-husband Cornelius Coffey. The Coffey School was the first black-owned and operated private flight academy in the United States. In 1939, the school received a government contract to begin training pilots for the Civilian Pilot Training Program.

By 1941, Brown had trained hundreds of men and women. Many of her male students went on to become part of the famed Tuskegee Airmen. Brown also became the first black officer (male or female) in the Civil Air Patrol in 1941. Earning her mechanic’s license in 1943, she became the first woman to hold both a mechanic’s license and a commercial pilot license. She actively lobbied for the integration of the U.S. military and ran (unsuccessfully) for Congress in 1946, the first black woman to do so.

Janet Harmon Waterford Bragg (1907 – 1993)

A contemporary and colleague of Willa Brown, Janet Harmon Waterford Bragg was the first black woman to earn a commercial pilot’s license. She had to try a second time in Chicago because the examiner in Tuskegee, Alabama refused to issue a license to a “colored girl.” She was a founder and charter member of the Challenger Aero Club, which eventually led to the National Airmen’s Association of America and the Coffey School of Aeronautics. Bragg also promoted the field of aviation in the 1930s through a regular column in the Chicago Defender newspaper.

Born the youngest of seven children in Georgia, Bragg moved to Illinois to live with her sister and work as a nurse after graduating from Spelman College. She decided that she wanted to learn to fly after seeing a billboard that read “Birds learn to fly. Why can’t you?” She was the only woman in a class with 24 black men at Curtiss Wright Aeronautical School in Chicago. The school was a ground school and had no means of offering flight training. She used the money she earned from working as a nurse to purchase a plane of her own and rent it out to other pilots.

Since black pilots were restricted from using white airports, Bragg along with several of her classmates and aviation instructors formed the Challenger Aero Club and built an airfield in the all-black town of Robbins, Illinois. In 1931, the Challenger club began an annual flyover at Chicago’s Lincoln Cemetery to honor Bessie Coleman.

Everyone can learn from and be inspired by the stories of these remarkable women from history. They faced incredible odds of racism and sexism and they achieved anyway. They also shared their gifts to help others rise.

“Because of Bessie Coleman, we have overcome that which was worse than racial barriers. We have overcome the barriers within ourselves and dared to dream.” –Lieutenant William Powell, Black Wings, 1934

“Don’t let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.” – Dr. Mae C. Jemison, first black woman astronaut

“I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise!” – Maya Angelou

Resources for further reading

Bessie Coleman – Biography.com

Bessie Coleman – nationalaviation.org

Biography of Bessie Coleman compiled by Thelma Rudd – bessiecoleman.org

Janet Bragg – Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Janet Harmon Bragg: Female Aviator by Kira M. Sobers

Janet Harmon Waterford Bragg – AvStop Magazine

Willa Brown – Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Masterful Willa Brown – DOM Magazine

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Demress Stockman is a Machine Vision and Robotics Specialist from Woodbury, Minnesota and has worked in the field of manufacturing automation for over fifteen years.  When she’s not visiting factories and programming robots, she enjoys reading about history and current events and volunteering with youth STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) programs.