Born in 1903—the same year as the Wright brothers’ famous first flight—Cornelius Coffey dreamed of becoming a pilot. However, Coffey was also born during the era of Jim Crow in the United States—a climate of formal and informal racial discrimination. Coffey, a skilled mechanic, would have to forge his own way in aviation.  

Coffey’s love for aviation was sparked by a fascination with machines—growing up as a son of locomotive mechanic—and a chance encounter with a barnstormer when he was a teenager. A World War I veteran, the barnstormer offered rides in his airplane when he arrived in Coffey’s hometown of Newport, Arkansas. When Coffey got his turn in the passenger seat, the pilot remarked at his fearlessness and told him to consider taking up flying. He’d hoped the fledgling aviation community would be more welcoming to him as a Black man, telling the Chicago Tribune in 1993, “My spirit was kindled to go into a line of work where I wouldn’t be bound by the limitations my father had to put up with.” The aeronautics world Coffey encountered would not prove to be the inclusive space he'd hoped to find, so he set out to help change that.

A top graduate from the Chicago School of Automotive Engineering in the late 1920s, Coffey initially found employment at a Chevrolet dealership. Coffey wanted to fly, but no one would teach him. As a result, Coffey built a one-seat airplane with fellow Black mechanic John Robinson, powered by a motorcycle engine, and the two taught themselves to fly.  

In 1929, Robinson and Coffey were accepted into an aviation mechanics program at the Curtiss-Wright School of Aviation in Chicago, but the school tried to revoke their admittance once they learned the men were Black. Emil Mack, the white owner of the dealership Coffey and Robinson worked for, threatened to sue the Curtiss-Wright School of Aviation. The school reluctantly let the pair attend the program. In 1931, Coffey graduated first in his class as an Aircraft Master Mechanic, with Robinson second. 

Coffey went on to earn his mechanic’s license from the U.S. government and eventually the Curtiss-Wright School of Aviation invited both men back to teach all-Black classes. Continuing his education, Coffey graduated from Aeronautical University in 1939 as an Aircraft Engine Mechanic, where he was one of the first two Black Americans at the school, and the first Black American to hold an Aircraft Engine Mechanic’s certificate. With this, Coffey also became the first Black American to hold both a pilot’s and mechanic’s license.  

Despite his clear qualifications as both a pilot and mechanic, Coffey was still unwelcome at almost every airstrip. Just one location, at Akers Airport near where he lived, allowed him to fly. But when the airport closed, he was fully grounded. Coffey, along with Robinson and several other Black aviators in the area, formed the Challenger Air Pilots Association. The group and a couple of other white pilots from Akers Airport bought a tract of land in an all-Black town southwest of Chicago named Robbins. 

After putting together what is now known as the first Black airport, a thunderstorm rolled through Robbins and destroyed it. Luckily, around the same time, brothers William and Fred Schumacher were also building their own airport on Harlem Avenue—and offered to rent the lower end of the airport to the Challenger group. Black and white pilots used separate hangars but shared the airport's four runways. 

William Schumacher soon hired Coffey to re-certify the overhauled aircraft of his white customers, and as a result Coffey was able to start earning money as a mechanic. The two men had a successful working relationship, but it was defined by segregation. Coffey’s Flying School operated at one end of Harlem Airport, and Schumacher’s school on the other. 

Cornelius Coffey was the first Black American to establish an aeronautical school. From 1938 to 1945, more than 1000 students went through the Coffey School of Aeronautics, many of whom would go on to become members of the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. Coffey taught both Black and white students, regardless of gender. One such student was Willa Brown—the first Black woman to earn both a pilot’s license in the United States (1938) and a commercial license (1939). Brown and Coffey were married for a time, working together to open the skies to Black pilots.  

In 1939, the Challenger Air Pilots Association decided to broaden its scope to outside of Chicago with the National Airman’s Association (NAA). Brown became the secretary with Coffey as the president. That same year the NAA sponsored a national air meet in Chicago. Between forty and fifty Black aviators came to Chicago—where they met fellow aviators and shared information about aeronautics. 

Shortly after the NAA was formed, it received its first call to action. War had begun to brew with Germany. President Franklin D. Roosevelt allotted $10 million to train civilian pilots to join the Army Air Corps. Coffey and the rest of the NAA feared that Black aviators would be left out. As a result, they staged a publicity stunt in which NAA’s vice president Dale White and a fellow NAA board member Chauncey Spencer flew from Chicago to Washington, D.C. to advocate for the inclusion of African Americans in civilian and military flight training. The two met with then-Senator Harry Truman, who reportedly commented, “If you guys had the guts to fly this thing to Washington, I've got guts enough to see you get what you are asking.”  

Not only did the flight demonstrate the difficulties Black pilots faced—such as being turned away at airports along the way—legislation was eventually passed allowing Black Americans to participate in the Civilian Pilot Training Program. Truman would later go on to integrate the armed services by executive order when he was the President in 1948. 

When civilian pilot training sites were announced shortly after, seven sites were included for training Black students. The only site that was not on a college campus was Harlem Airport where Coffey was set to direct flight training and personally maintain the aircraft used. During World War II, the Coffey School offered elementary (primary) and advanced military flying instruction. The Coffey School of Aeronautics also taught cross-country flight instruction. In 1942, Coffey himself became a commissioned Captain in the Civil Air Patrol, a civilian auxiliary of the United States Air Force. 

Coffey initially used two Piper Cubs for primary flight training, and two WACO PT-14s—the latter of which were lent by the Curtiss-Wright school. By 1941, the fleet had expanded to 10 aircraft. The facilities for the Civilian Pilot Training Program at Harlem were modest. The government wouldn’t fund student housing, so supporters independently built a dormitory. Coffey and Willa Brown also used some of their own earnings to set up a pool of cash for use by unpaid students as needed. 

Coffey continued to be committed to civil rights throughout his life. When he found out that Black servicemen would be segregated from white servicemen in the Army Air Corps he commented, “We’d rather be excluded than to be segregated.” Although he was frustrated with the military’s decision, he continued to train Black Americans who wanted to fly despite the military’s segregation. After the war, Coffey left Harlem Airport and served as an instructor at the Lewis School of Aeronautics in Lockport, Illinois and later at Chicago's Dunbar Vocational High School where he trained some of the first Black Americans to be hired as mechanics by commercial airlines. 

In 1980, the FAA established the COFEY intersection (the missing “F” is due to the fact that radio checkpoints are limited to 5 letters) at Chicago Midway Airport for airplanes making final course corrections. In 1991, the National Aeronautic Association named Coffey an Elder Statesmen of Aviation. In 1993, the Cornelius R. Coffey Aviation Education Foundation was founded to aid women and minorities who aspire to work in aircraft maintenance. Cornelius Coffey passed away on March 2, 1994, but his enduring legacy as an advocate for the education of Black Americans in aeronautics lives on.  

Want to share Coffey's story with a young learner? Check out this Pilot Pals episode!