Nov 04, 2021
By Dorothy Cochrane and P. Ramirez
“Queen of the airlines.” That’s what a 1941 article called Willa Brown.
It wasn’t an empty accolade. The article in The Pittsburgh Courier went on to explain that Brown was “the highest-ranking colored woman in the field of aviation of aviation,” followed by a list of accomplishments. Even so, the article still undersold just how accomplished Willa Brown was. Brown made history again and again as a pilot, civil rights advocate, and leader.
Brown moved to Chicago while working as a social worker with the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Chicago was a hub of Black aviators. Like Bessie Coleman before her, Brown developed an interest in flying after moving there.
Brown took lessons from John Robinson and Cornelius Coffey at the Curtiss-Wright Aeronautical University. Robinson and Coffey had integrated the school as the first Black students. Curtiss-Wright then hired them to teach other potential Black aviators. From their first class, they taught both women and men. (Janet Bragg was the sole woman in the first class.)
In 1935, Brown earned her Master Mechanic Certificate. She then began giving flight and ground school instruction.
She also ran Brown’s Lunch Counter at Chicago’s Harlem Airport. All this was in addition to her non-aviation work, which was equally impressive. For instance, in 1936 she became a secretary-stenographer for the Department of Labor, Immigration, and Naturalization Service. The Pittsburgh Courier reported it “marked the first time a colored girl had entered the U.S. Civil Service in Chicago in more than 10 years.”
Brown quickly became a leader in Chicago’s Black flying community. She joined the Challenger Air Pilots Association, a group of Black pilots. The club would become a strong force in the fight for opportunities for Black pilots in the 1930s and ‘40s. Willa Brown was a huge part of that effort.
Her advocacy began early. One day in 1936, she walked into the office of the Chicago Defender, the city’s Black newspaper, dressed in her aviator’s outfit. Her goal? To persuade them to advertise an air show of all Black pilots taking place in Chicago. “She made such a stunning appearance that all the typewriters, which had been clacking noisily, suddenly went silent,” Enoch Waters, the editor of the paper wrote.
The Chicago Defender did advertise the show. Between 200 and 300 people attended. Waters covered the event himself and even went for a flight with Brown. He remained a long-time supporter of Black aviators.
In 1938, Cornelius Coffey opened the Coffey School of Aeronautics. Brown was a key part of running the school and teaching students. She would eventually become the director of the school. She also would marry Coffey.
That isn't all. Brown helped found the National Airmen’s Association of America (NAAA) in 1939. The group promoted interest in aviation and advocated for Black aviators. Brown held a variety of leadership roles in the organization, including president of the Chicago branch.
In addition to all her leadership work, Brown continued to build her flying resume. She earned her private pilot’s license in 1938 and a limited commercial pilot’s license in 1939. (A limited commercial pilot's license limited Bragg to fly a distance of 50 miles and only in daylight. Janet Bragg became the first Black woman in the U.S. to earn an unlimited commercial pilot's license in 1943.)
As World War II approached, the National Airmen’s Association of America (NAAA), under Brown's leadership, advocated for the government to earmark funding for opportunities for Black pilots in war-related spending.
Brown was keenly attuned to these opportunities. For instance, President Roosevelt established the Civilian Pilot Training Program in 1938. The program did what the name said: trained civilians to be pilots to prepare for war. Thanks in part to the advocacy of the NAAA, seven schools for Black aviators received federal funds to run the training program. The Coffey School of Aeronautics, where Brown was now the director, was one of the seven schools. Brown trained thousands of civilian pilots. Approximately 200 would become Tuskegee Airmen.
In 1942, Brown and Coffey also organized a Civil Air Patrol chapter, Squadron 613. The Civil Air Patrol freed military pilots for combat. Civilian pilots took on non-combat flying jobs on the home front, so military pilots didn't have to. Civil Air Patrol pilots watched the coasts for U-boats, monitored the Mexican border, towed targets for military gunnery practice, carried cargo, and more.
Brown was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Civil Air Patrol. She was the first African American officer in the organization. As a lieutenant, she oversaw 1,000 members. She would later become the coordinator of war-training service for the organization.
The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) were established in 1943. Similar to the Civil Air Patrol, WASP performed non-combat flying jobs to free up military pilots. Brown applied to join. However, despite being the instructor of 200 Tuskegee Airmen and a lieutenant with the Civil Air Patrol, she was rejected. The reason? Her race.
After World War II ended, Brown remained a leader in aviation and involved in fights for Civil Rights in the air … and on land.
Brown was the first African American woman to run for Congress when she campaigned in 1946. (She did not win. Shirley Chisholm became the first African American woman in Congress over two decades later.) Brown was involved in her community as a teacher, and later as a reverend’s wife (during her marriage to her third husband, J.H. Chappell, following her divorce from Coffey).
In the air, she kept flying and teaching. In 1949, she attempted to get federal aid for an airport for African Americans in Chicago. In 1972, she was the first Black woman named to the Federal Aviation Administration’s Women’s Advisory Committee.
After a lifetime of advancing opportunities for Black aviators, Brown died in 1992. Her tombstone reads “Since 1937, Pilot Certificate #43814. Pioneer Aviatrix. Willa Brown Chappell.”
This content was migrated from an earlier online exhibit, Women in Aviation and Space History, which shared the stories of the women featured in the Museum in the early 2000s. The blog was originally published with the title "Early African American Aviator Willa Brown" in 2021. In 2025, Dorothy Cochrane and Amelia Grabowski updated the blog to add more information. You can read the original version via Internet Archive.
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We rely on the generous support of donors, sponsors, members, and other benefactors to share the history and impact of aviation and spaceflight, educate the public, and inspire future generations. With your help, we can continue to preserve and safeguard the world’s most comprehensive collection of artifacts representing the great achievements of flight and space exploration.
