Ida Van Smith
Born in Texas, Bessie Coleman (1893-1926) was one of 13 children. As a teenager she moved to Chicago where she worked as a manicurist and fell in love with the planes always buzzing above the city. Denied entrance to American flight schools because of her race and gender, she learned French and moved to France in 1920, where she became the first African American woman to earn a pilot’s license from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale. When she returned to the United States, she was quickly sought after as a talented barnstormer and lecturer. Bessie Coleman was killed in 1926 when she fell out of her plane, which malfunctioned when a wrench jammed the gears, while scouting locations for an upcoming air show in Florida. Her mechanic was piloting the plane and he also died in the accident. Each year on the anniversary of her death, African American aviators fly over her grave in Chicago to drop flowers in her honor.
After she heard about Bessie’s tragic death, Willa Brown Chappell (1906-1992) decided to learn to fly. Willa was the first African American woman to earn her pilot’s license in the United States (1937), the first African American woman flight instructor (at the Coffey School of Aviation in Chicago, 1939), and the first African American officer in the Civil Air Patrol (1941). She was instrumental in training more than 200 students who went on to become Tuskegee pilots. In 1972, she was appointed to the Federal Aviation Administration’s Women’s Advisory Board. She continued teaching until her retirement in the mid 1970s and took her last flight in June of 1992 at the age of 86. The Willa Brown Aviation Program at the College of Alameda in California continues her work.
In the 1930s, Janet Harmon Bragg (1912-1993) used the money she earned as a nurse to buy the first airplane for The Challenger Aero Club near Chicago. She was the club’s first president. In 1943, she became the first African American woman to receive a full commercial pilot’s license. Janet Bragg and Willa Brown were in the group of black aviators who worked for acceptance of African Americans into government and industry sponsored flight training programs. She once said, “It’s sad, but back then people did not believe blacks had the mental capacity to fly an aircraft and for a woman to be a pilot then, why, that was even more unheard of.” Flying her own plane provided an outlet for her anger about the discrimination she faced. She retired from flying in 1965 and from nursing in 1972. Her autobiography is titled Soaring Above Setbacks.
Raised in a small town near Rochester, NY, Dorothy Layne McIntyre received her pilot’s license at West Virginia State College in 1940 in the Civilian Pilot Training Program. The CPT program was set up in 1938 by the U.S. government to create pilots who would be needed in the pending war through already existing flying venues. Six Negro Colleges were in the program. A quota was set up for each class of 8 men and 2 women students. Dorothy Layne volunteered for the first class at WVSC, where she was studying bookkeeping. During the war she taught aviation mechanics to airplane factory workers in Baltimore. She moved to Cleveland, Ohio and became a teacher. She never could afford her own plane, but flew with anyone who had an empty seat in their plane. Her daughter choreographed a dance/play based on her mother’s experiences entitled, “Take-off From a Forced Landing”, which opened off-Broadway in 1984.
Ida Van Smith was born in 1917 in Lumberton, North Carolina. She graduated from Shaw University with a Bachelor’s Degree and later earned her Masters from Queens College. She went on to become a teacher in the New York City Public Schools. At the age of 50 she fulfilled her personal dream to learn to fly. Smith became one of the first black women flight instructors in the world and established more than 20 flight clubs across the United States. As a result, thousands of children were exposed to aviation and many pursued careers in aviation. Ida Van Smith died in 2003.
In 1971, Eleanor J. Williams became the first African American woman to be certified as an air traffic control specialist. She was based at the Anchorage, Alaska ARTCC. In 1994, she was selected to become the first African American woman manager of an enroute air traffic control center, at the Cleveland ARTCC in Oberlin, Ohio, the nation’s second busiest ARTCC facility.
While working as a flight attendant for United Airlines, Shirley Tyus earned her pilot’s license. She then worked part-time for the black-owned Wheeler Airlines. In 1987, after flying cargo for 2000 hours, she was hired as a pilot for United Airlines.
In 1994, Patrice Clark-Washington, a graduate of Embry Riddle University, was the first African American woman to become a captain for a commercial airline (UPS). Her husband Ray is a pilot for Americann Airlines, making them the only African American flying couple.
Born in Clinton, Mississippi, Captain Betty Payne graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in Criminology. She joined the U.S. Air Force while she was in graduate school. She completed the Squadron Officer School by correspondence. She received her commission in 1973 and served as a Quality Assurance Specialist in Thailand and Korea. When she learned that the Air Force planned to admit women to pilot and navigation training, she joined the first class of navigators that included women and received her navigator’s wings on October 12, 1977.
At the age of 23, Lt. Colonel Marcella Hayes Ng (Ret.) became the first African American woman to receive her USAF aviator wings when, in 1979, she completed Army helicopter training.
Major General Marcelite Jordan Harris (Ret.) graduated from Spelman College with a degree in drama. After going on a USO tour, she found little acting work and joined the USAF in 1964. After that she followed a steady path of training and promotions until in 1995 she became the first African American woman general in the Air Force.
In 1992, Dr. Mae Jemison became the first African American woman astronaut and Mission Specialist aboard the space shuttle Endeavour on STS-47. She is a doctor of medicine and served in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone. She once told her kindergarten teacher that she wanted to be a “scientist”. She now explains, “I passed through the fields of chemical engineering, medicine, African Studies and human space flight while seeking to become the professional scientist I imagined in kindergarten.” Dr. Jemison has said that, “(Bessie Coleman) knew it was important not to limit yourself even if someone else is trying to put a limit on you.”
