The traveling “Tuskegee Airmen: America’s Freedom Flyers” exhibition celebrates aviators and staff that overcame discrimination in the U.S. and became the U.S.’s first Black combat pilots during World War II.
Currently on display in Indianapolis, it features stories and memorabilia of Hoosier trailblazers such as Charles B. Hall, the first Black pilot to shoot down an enemy aircraft.
But for historian Crystal Reynolds, the exhibition is incomplete. One Black aviatrix was missing: Willa Brown. It is not the first time Brown has been left out of the conversation in Indiana.
Brown was the first woman of color to earn an American pilot’s license, but her accomplishments don’t stop there. She co-founded the Coffey School of Aeronautics, one of the few institutions in the country that fed into the Tuskegee Airmen. Brown trained more than 200 Tuskegee Airmen and instructors.
Plus, Reynolds said, she grew up in Indiana.
“I know how important this is, because we're honoring all these men, which we should,” Reynolds said. “But they wouldn’t exist without her. When I say that, I'm not exaggerating. They know this.”
Though Brown was not included in the “hometown heroes” section of the exhibition in Indianapolis, NOLAWORLD Curator Robin Williams said Brown is featured in an upcoming installation in Chicago. That exhibition describes the Coffey School of Aeronautics and Brown’s work with her husband John Coffey.
“There are some Airmen who were born in certain places but made their significant contributions elsewhere,” Williams said. “While she helped to train many of the Airmen that would eventually go on to complete training at Tuskegee Army Airfield (TAAF), she was not considered a Tuskegee Airmen per se.”
It is a familiar situation for Brown, a Black woman who “got lost to history,” Reynolds said. Reynolds has been trying to learn more about Brown’s life and work in Indiana.
Brown has been honored in the Women in Aviation’s International Pioneer Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Aviation Hall of Fame, the Illinois Aviation Hall of Fame and the National Aviation Hall of Fame.
But the Indiana Aviation Hall of Fame has yet to give Brown the same recognition, Reynolds said.
These omissions, Reynolds said, can be fixed through education.
“I think a lot of it is just ignorance about who she is,” Reynolds said.
Brown did not like to talk about herself, Reynolds said, and she did not leave behind many accounts. Maybe the story is just too unbelievable; she said she’s often met with disbelief when she explains everything Brown — a petite, Black, female pilot — accomplished.
“She was trying to fulfill this whole concept of equality, opportunity and liberty for everybody,” Reynolds said.
Willa Brown’s nephew, David Brown, said his aunt did most of her work in World War II in Chicago, so he gives “Indiana a bit of a pass” for leaving her out of the Tuskegee Airmen exhibition.
Still, he believes it is time for his aunt to get more recognition in the state she grew up in.
“I absolutely think she's being overlooked,” David Brown said. “I don't think she's getting her due.“
Willa Brown’s path from Terre Haute to Chicago
Willa Brown was born in Kentucky in 1906, but she spent much of her childhood and early adulthood in Indiana, Reynolds said. Her family moved to Terre Haute, where she was educated in mixed-race schools. She attended Sarah Scott Junior High and then Wiley High School.
“She actually lived on a street called South 15th Street, and then she lived on South 13th,” Reynolds said. “My house is right around the corner from where her house used to be.”
Willa Brown would go on to earn a teaching degree in 1927 at Indiana State Normal School, which would become Indiana State University, Reynolds said.
The university honored Brown with a scholarship in her name for aviation students. The Terre Haute Regional Airport also recognized her, creating a memorial for her work as a pioneer in aviation and civil rights.
Reynolds said Brown worked in Terre Haute and Gary before heading to Chicago during the Great Depression. That’s where Brown’s interest in flying would become a reality thanks to Black pilots John C. Robinson and Coffey.
Female pilots Amelia Earhart and Bessie Coleman had already made headlines and broken barriers in aviation. Brown was especially inspired by Coleman, and she honored Coleman throughout her life.
“Willa and Betsy Coleman are buried in the same Lincoln Cemetery outside of Chicago,” David Brown said. “Historically, the Tuskegee Airmen from the DODO chapter of Chicago would drop flowers over their grave sites.”
In 1921,Coleman became the first Black woman and Native American to hold a pilot’s license. She was forced to get a pilot’s license in France, because American pilot programs did not admit women or people of color at the time.
“She was a phenom,” Reynolds said.
Brown earned her pilot’s license in 1937. Brown also co-founded the National Airmen’s Association of America to advocate for Black aviators and earned an M.B.A. from Northwestern University.
Then, she became the first woman of color to receive a commercial pilot’s license and a mechanic’s license.
“Back then, you still had not only racism, but you had sexism, because here you got a woman that's trying to do things,” David Brown said. “I don't know if back in those days, they were ready for that.”
Brown, the Tuskegee Airmen and more “firsts”
In 1938, Willa Brown and Coffey established the Coffey School in Chicago. In addition to training hundreds of aspiring aviators, she advocated for the inclusion of Black pilots in the armed forces.
“Black people were segregated in the military, and they were not allowed to be in the Army Air Corps,” Reynolds said. “They said they weren't smart enough to fly planes.”
Brown lobbied Congress and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who later lent her support to the Tuskegee Airmen.
“She would fly her plane into Washington, D.C., and go to Congress with her aviation outfit on,” Reynolds said.
Brown’s efforts were successful, and her work led to the establishment of the Civilian Pilot Training Program. Created just before World War II, the program allowed Black men to train as civilian pilots and potentially prepare for military service. Brown coordinated the program in Chicago.
The U.S. Air Force selected the Coffey School as one of the few institutions to provide trainees for the Tuskegee Institute.
“They learned how to be in the military — not to be pilots, because they were already so well trained,” Reynolds said.
David Brown said those pilots were more than prepared for their tests when they arrived at the institute in Alabama.
“Because that would have been the test that Aunt Willa gave them, before she sent the cream of the crop to go down to Tuskegee,” he said. “She wanted to make sure she represented nothing but the best and the brightest.”
Outside of education and advocacy, Willa Brown stayed busy with more “firsts” during the war. She became the first Black officer in the Civil Air Patrol in 1941, achieving the rank of Lieutenant. She and other pilots supported the war effort by detecting submarines, patrolling the U.S. and monitoring coasts and borders.
“She was like a badass,” Reynolds said. “She was just the best of the best.”
Willa Brown would be dubbed the “Maker of Pilots” by Charles Henry Alston, an influential artist during the Harlem Renaissance.
The work of Brown and countless others eventually led to the desegregation of the military in 1948.
After the war, she became the first Black woman to run for Congress, though shew as not elected.
She taught until the 1970sand she died in 1992. Growing up in Chicago, David Brown spent many weekends with her. To him, she was proud and quiet, going to church on Sundays and sending him some money through Western Union.
She was the “cool aunt,” he said. “She was just an amazing person.”
