INDIANAPOLIS — This Women's History Month we are celebrating women making great strides in our state.
WRTV’s Amber Grigley shares the story of a trailblazer and the fight to make sure her impact is not forgotten as one of the greatest female aviators.
"We grew up always being told, 'What are you going to do for your people?'" Joy Murff great niece of Willa Brown said.
This question has helped the Brown family soar across the country for more than a century.
"Aunt Willa’s family wanted her to have a good education, they wanted all their kids to have a good education," Jennifer Mixon Willa Brown's Great niece said.
Willa Beatrice Brown was born on January 22, 1906, in Glasgow, Kentucky. By the age of six, Brown's parents relocated further north.
"Her mom and dad went on to Terre Haute, Indiana. She got elementary, middle school, and then on to college," Mixon said.
These were formative years that earned her a degree from Indiana State Normal School, now known as Indiana State University.
Willa Brown landed her first teaching job at Roosevelt High School, an all-black school in Gary, Indiana.
"All I ever heard was sky's the limit," Mixon said.
It wasn't long before her passion reached new heights.
"She began to learn about her mentor, Bessie Coleman, and she had the opportunity to see her fly. And that's what captured her heart was the opportunity that not only could an individual fly, but a woman was doing it and a woman of color," Murff said.
Brown went on to become the first African American woman to earn a private and commercial pilot's license in the United States.
"She was very passionate about flying. But it just didn't happen overnight," Murff said.
With her husband Cornelius Coffey, who was also a pilot, the couple opened "The Coffey School of Aeronautics." They recruited and trained black men and women to be pilots, several of whom became Tuskegee Airmen.
"She felt proud of those young men, that 2,000 plus that she did send off," Murff said.
She also played a critical role in integrating black pilots into the Army Air Corps.
"The door was often shut in her face, she was as comfortable with failure, probably more so than success," Murff said.
Her work for equal rights didn't stop in the world of aviation. Brown went on to become the first African American woman to run for Congress.
"If you just stop calling her a pilot, you miss it. Okay, she was a lobbyist. Okay, she was a teacher, she advocated. She did all these things, to make things better for our people," Darrell Morton Jr., an aviation professional said.
Willa Brown's name is attached to many firsts. She has a Congressional Gold Medal for World War II, named one of the most influential women in aviation, you can find her in the Smithsonian Institution Museum, an aviation school named after her, and so much more. But there's one recognition that has yet to be added to her list of accomplishments, being inducted into the Indiana Aviation Hall of Fame.
"My mom's passion was always to get Aunt Willa the recognition that she had for what all she had done," Mixon said.
"Yes, I’ve nominated her three times for the Indiana Aviation Hall of Fame. And it's again three times she hasn't gotten in some of the barriers, it seems that no one really knows her story," Morton said.
Her story could inspire more women to take to the skies.
The percentage of women airline pilots globally is only 4% to 6%, according to the CAPA Centre for Aviation.
The number of US women airline pilots grew by 71% in 20 years, from 2002 to 2022. But it still only brings the percentage up to about 5%.
"We have to find mentors and be able to help these young ladies to see that there is an opportunity and help them take advantage of them," Morton said.
"We know that eventually we'll get her the right recognition that she deserves," Mixon said.
In 2022, Brown was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. Indiana State University has a scholarship in Brown's name and a mural honoring her as a trailblazer in aviation history.
