Aviator Willa Brown (shown in her padded flight suit) was a fervent promoter of the cause of black aviation. Biographical Passage about Willa Brown “During the past three years I have devoted full time to aviation, and for the most part marked progress has been made. I have, however, encountered several difficulties—several of them I have handled very well, and some have been far too great for me to master.”      — Willa Brown, in a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt, December 6, 1941 Seeking advance publicity for a black air show, Willa Brown talked with Enoch Waters, the city editor of the Chicago Defender, an influential black owned and operated newspaper. Mr. Waters’s account of her visit and the subsequent air show were reported to Defender readers as follows. “WILLA BROWN VISITS THE CHICAGO DEFENDER” “When Willa Brown, a young woman wearing white jodhpurs, jacket and boots, strode into our newsroom in 1936, she made such a stunning appearance that all the typewriters, which had been clacking noisily, suddenly went silent. Unlike most first-time visitors, she wasn’t at all bewildered. She had a confident bearing and there was an undercurrent of determination in her voice. “‘I want to speak to Mr. Enoch Waters,’ she said. I wasn’t unhappy at the prospect of discovering who she was and what she wanted. I had an idea she was a model representing a new commercial product that she had been hired to promote. ‘I’m Willa Brown,’ she informed me, seating herself without being asked. “In a businesslike manner she explained that she was an aviatrix and wanted some publicity for a Negro air show at Harlem Airport on the city’s southwest side. Except for the colorful ‘Colonel’ Hubert Fauntleroy Julian, who called himself the ‘Black Eagle’ and who had gained lots of publicity for his exploits, and ‘Colonel’ John Robinson, a Chicago flyer who was in Ethiopia heading up Haile Selassie’s air force, I was unaware of any other Negro aviators, particularly in Chicago. “‘There are about thirty of us,’ she informed me, ‘both men and women.’ Most were students, she added, but several had obtained their licenses and one, Cornelius Coffey, was an expert aviation and engine mechanic who also held a commercial pilot’s license and was a certified flight instructor. He was the leader of the group. She informed me that she held a limited commercial pilot’s license. “Fascinated by both her and the idea of Negro aviators, I decided to follow up the story myself. Accompanied by a photographer, I covered the air show. About 200 or 300 other spectators attended, attracted by the story in the Defender. So happy was Willa over our appearance that she offered to take me up for a free ride. She was piloting a Piper Cub, which seemed to me, accustomed as I was to commercial planes, to be a rather frail craft. It was a thrilling experience, and the maneuvers—figure eights, flip-overs and stalls—were exhilarating, though momentarily frightening. I wasn’t convinced of her competence until we landed smoothly.”