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Female Firsts: Willa Brown · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I've never told you a production of iHeartRadio, and it
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: is time for another edition of Female First, which means
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: we are once again joined by the wonderful, the magnificent,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the well traveled Eve. Welcome Eve. Thank you. What an introduction.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you. I do get in my head about them,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: but that's when it gets worse. So you just got
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: to go with the flow, you know, overthick things. It
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: feels like lifetime says We've seen you. I was thinking
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: about this today. So much has happened. We were catching
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: up before. So much has happened in all of our
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: lives since the last time we recorded. How are you?
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'm doing good today.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: You know. I am like enjoying the crispy, cool weather.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: I was out, I was outside of shorts and a
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: T shirt on earlier, and usually I'm not that kind
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: of person. So I'm like, am I becoming a fall person?
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: Because I usually think of myself as a spring and
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: summer person. But pretty soon I'll be headed into climates
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: that are a lot colder than the one that I'm
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: used to in the South. I'll probably run into some snow,
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: so I'm gonna see if I really am a fall.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Girly pretty soon.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: This is this fall is a fall, this is light
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: fall light one, right, you know that we get in Atlanta,
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: so once I go farther north they hit fall full on,
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: then I'll see if I can make that determination for sure.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I'm feeling good. I'm feeling well rested and
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: also excited at the same time, which I feel like
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: is a good space to be in.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what about y'all? I feel better today. There's been
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of stress. I think everybody should still lot
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: of stress right now, and we have been really busy
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: if the listeners show, no, we've had a lot of
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: surprise things happen in the past few weeks. But I
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: woke up early today, and you know, when your life
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: is just in chaos and you can't, things just build up.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I like took out my trash, I broke down the boxes.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: I did.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I just did a bunch of stuff that I have
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: not had time to do, or if I had the time,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I did not have the energy to do. So I
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: also got to go outside. That was nice. So you're
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: getting rid of things, Yeah, yeah, it was really nice.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I took a shower last night. Oh my gosh, I'm
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: living the dream. That's how like stressed I've been though,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Is that like if I can check off these things, Yeah,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I feel a lot better.
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I Yeah, I'm with you with the Giant.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I love fall.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: We just don't get a lot of it.
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: I think we've talked about us enough that I'm trying
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: to get into the spirit of it, and I think
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: it's working. We've talked about soup on the on our
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: show Eves because I love soup, and last week was
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: like a great week of like weather for soup, so
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: I was very excited for Gus split second, I was like, yeah,
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: I'll me get some of that. Halloween is coming up.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: I don't really have good.
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: Not much planned, going to see some friends and hopefully
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: I'm not super awkward.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: That's the plan. We'll see.
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: I'll take my anti anxiety mess just in case, so
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: I'm feeling prepared at the very very least. I think,
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: like there, I don't know what this year has been
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: about except for.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Anxiety plus planning, and that's.
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: Been like the entirety of I don't know why this
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: year has become that, but every time I do this,
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: some things have happened, like and it gets jelly duty,
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: but then like coming out of it and being like, hey,
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: we made it feels really relieving. So I don't know
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: exactly what looks like in the future, but I'm very
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: like optimistic as well, which is odd for me. That
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: is not that is not usually my go to. Yeah,
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: but hey, that's a good place to be today.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: It is. I love that for you, Samantha. Thank you.
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: Someone we're recording this, so we've got this.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: On record accountability.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, well, I'm so excited to talk about the
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: person you brought today. Used this has got like a
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: crossover from someone else we've talked about. It's got like
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of different first going on. It's just such
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: a great story. Can you tell us who we are
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: discussing today.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: Yes, So we are talking about Willa Brown, who was
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: the first black woman to have a commercial pilot's license
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: from the US and she advocated for black pilots to
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: be accepted into the aviation community. So I think in
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: the past we've talked a little bit about Ava TRIX's.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: I remember saying that, yes, that's the word they use
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: for female pilots. I won't be saying that word today,
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: but if you read some of the articles about her
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: and some of the texts that are about her biography,
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: you'll see that they use the terminology ava stricks. But
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: it's a pretty cool thing to do to fly as
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: a woman in the early nineteen hundreds, and Willa Brown
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: was a person who did that, who who's biography and
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: legacy have been uncovered and uplifted. But you know, she's
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: been in Hall of Fames, which will get to a
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: little bit more at the end of her story, but
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: it's definitely worth talking about more because she was kind
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: of integral in bringing more black people into aviation and
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: like being an actual force for that. So she did
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: that as virtue of being a pilot herself, but she
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: also advocated for that, like she spoke up for other
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: people doing it, other black people getting invested in, other
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: women being coming in investing in aviation.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she did so much. And that's something we've talked
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: about before on the show of how inspirational it is
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: to see people who care to teach the next generation
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: and are bring in more people. And she was definitely
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: living that embodied that. So shall we get into her story.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, start when she was born, which was on
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: January twenty second, nineteen oh six, in Glasgow, Kentucky, and
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: her parents were Hallie Mae Carpenter and Eric Brown. And
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: in nineteen fifteen, she and her family moved from their
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: farm in Kentucky to Indianapolis, Indiana. She had several siblings,
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: several brothers, and their family was looking for relief from
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: dem crow in Kentucky, and they were also looking for
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: more opportunities like so many people, so many black people
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: were seeking at the time. But Indianapolis still was a
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: racist play Like it's not like they were leaving out
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: of you know, you know, out of the frying pan
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: and into some sort of heaven.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: You know.
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  Speaker 3: They went to another place where they still had more difficulties.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: So then they moved to Tara Hope in Indiana, but
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: same thing there. They still faced difficulties and discrimination. And
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: in Indiana she went to Wiley High School, which was
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: a desegregated school there in South Tara Hope, and there
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: weren't many black people there. So I think I saw
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: that there were less than fifteen black people who went
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: to that school. And Willa also worked part time as
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: a domestic worker while in school, so We've seen this
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: often for people who were going through their studies, but
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: they still had stuff that they had to do at home,
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: They still had to take care of their families. They
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: were responsible in some way for the economic stability of
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: the family, and so that was probably the case for Willa.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: But she graduated high school in nineteen twenty three and
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: she went to Indiana State Normal School, which is now
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: Indiana State University. She majored in business and she minored
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: in French.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: And I'm not.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: So sure what drove her to major and minor in
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: those things. I mean, I would love to know a
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: little bit more about what drove her to be interested
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: in business in French, but I'm not quite sure about that.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: But it is known that she also joined the Black
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, and before she graduated, she got
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: a teaching job at the Roosevelt Annex in Gary, Indiana.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: She taught typewriting and stenography when she was there, and
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: she also sponsored the writing club and she was faculty
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  Speaker 3: advisor for the school's newspaper. So at the beginning of episode,
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: we talked a little bit about how she advocated for
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: other people. Once she gets into her aviation career. But
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: I just wanted to stop to think about how some
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: of her early interests in teaching and in developing her
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: own writing and other her own communication skills and other
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: people's communication skills probably would have been a great foundation
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: for that kind of public relations, kind of promotional work
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: that she did later when it comes to piloting. So
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: I imagine at this point she has clearly, if she's teaching it,
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  Speaker 3: a great foundation in communications and writing and knowing how
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: to speak to people and knowing how to develop her voice,
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  Speaker 3: how to use it in a persuasive manner, and things
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  Speaker 3: like that. So when she was working in Gary, she
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: met Wilbur J. Hardaway, who was a Black Republican alderman
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: who represented the fifth ward on the city council. He
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: was also a member of the local chapter of the NAACP,
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: and he graduated from the Tuskegee Institute and was one
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: of the first black firefighters in Gary. He also I'm
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: not so sure about much of the conversations that they
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: had in their relationship, but he also probably had to
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: do with the development of her consciousness around blackness, around politicism,
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  Speaker 3: around investment.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: In your community.
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  Speaker 3: It seems like he might have had some sort of
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: role in her life in helping encourage the development of
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: those things in her or the way that they spoke
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: to each other and worked together was part of that development.
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  Speaker 3: They got married on November twenty fourth, nineteen twenty nine,
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: and they divorced in nineteen thirty one. And she later
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: explained that she wasn't cut out to be a housewife.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: And once we start going through her story a little
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: bit more, it feels like that'll kind of make sense.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: This was her first time getting married, it won't be
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: her last time getting married in her life.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: And also she was.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: Very, very invest in fine and in developing her career
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: in aviation. So she got her degree from Indiana State
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: in nineteen thirty one, and in nineteen thirty two she
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: moved to Chicago. So at the time, Chicago was largely segregated,
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: with most of the black folks living on the South Side.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: But I'm sure y'all have talked about the history of
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: Chicago during this time, Like it was very vibrant. It
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: was full of lots of black culture, social social movements,
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: and arts, and there was a lot of there was
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: a lot of movement around black people developing themselves professionally
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: and developing their social consciousnesses in Chicago.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: So when she was in Chicago, Willow.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: Worked as a secretary to the director of the Chicago
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: Relief Administration. She also worked as a social services worker
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: for the Cook County Bureau pub Welfare. She worked as
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: a clerk for the US Department of Immigration and Naturalization,
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: and she worked for the US Post Office. And she
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: was at some point as secretary for the scholar Horace Kitton.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: She was also the first black person to work at
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: the Social Security Board's Chicago office. So moving on to
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: where she became interested in aviation, she, like many other
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: black women at the time, was very inspired by Bessie Coleman.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: So I think a lot of people are probably familiar
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: with Bessie Coleman, another person who has a huge legacy,
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: a Black woman who has a huge legacy in aviation
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: in the United States and overseas because she was like
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: when I think about Bessie Coleman, I think about she
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: was like one of those foundational people in Black History
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: Month for me, Like when I was in kindergarten, she
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: was one of the people who was on the little
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: contour drawings that they would do and we would have
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: to color them in and they would put them up
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: on the wall. Bessie Coleman was one of those people
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: you know, next to George Washington Carver or Garrett Morgan.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: So I think.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: About that when I think about Bessie Coleman and how
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: foundation of a legacy she is. So it's nice to
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: see her show up in Willa Brown's legacy because she
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: too was a pioneer, and it's nice to see how
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: that lineage and line kind of continued. And Willa was
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: able to be inspired by Bessie and actually wrap that
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: history into the work that she was doing herself. So
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Bessie Coleman was the first black woman and Native Americans
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: to have a pilot's license, and Bessie got her license
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: in nineteen twenty one in France. So Willa in nineteen
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: thirty four she worked at a Walgreens in Chicago and
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: she met a black pilot named John C. Robinson, and
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: he was also an important person and her becoming inspired
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: to get into aviation. John Robinson convinced her to take
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: flying lessons, and Chicago was like a hub for black
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: pilots and aviation in the country. So Willa Brown was
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: in a good place. So this is where she starts
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: to fall into. I've met the right people, and I
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: have interest, and I'm in the right place to actually
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: see this interest to go somewhere. And all the sources
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: and the different sources that I've read about Willa Brown,
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: they all kind of mention his intro, his encouragement of
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: her to get into aviation, and also her inspiration by
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: Bessie Coleman. But there has to be so much more
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: of a story here because and I don't know it,
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: because I'm not a scholar in Willa Brown's life, and
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: the sources that I've read haven't gone super super deep
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: into that, and I'm not sure it's fully known because
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: to be a black woman, to be black, to be
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: a woman at the time, to want to get into aviation,
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: there has to be some sort of strong impetus, even
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: if it's not the picture perfect movie version of Like
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: I had this tada aha moment of I was like, Oh,
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: I can you know I can do this thing that
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: nobody else is really doing or not many people at
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: all are doing in in this way, and I feel
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: confident enough to go into it. Not so sure about that, also,
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: not sure how her parents may have raised her or
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: what it was in her childhood that would have given
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: her the gumption, the you know, strength, the fortitude and
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: the will to be able to go into this field.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: And also, I mean I would like to We.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: May have talked about this last time, we talked about
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: polist but I would like to learn how to flop places.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: But it's the thing I know I'm not going to do,
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: but it is apocalyptic and apocalyptic skill that I would
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: like to have because I feel like it would be
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: very useful. But it seems so scary, so like to
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: want to do something that is so so like to me,
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: fearless in a way, and requires a lot of knowledge
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: to learn how to do at this time when you're
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: facing so many direct challenges, direct challenges because there were
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: direct challenges for her as a black woman, Then that
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: seems like that takes a lot of will for sure.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: So wish I knew more about that. I do not,
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: But I think there's a little bit of room to
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: bring our imaginations and you know, educated guesses into play here.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: So John Robinson introduced her to Cornelius Coffee and John
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: and Cornelius taught at the Curtis Right Aeronautical School which
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: they had attended before, and fought to bring more black
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: students to so as part of them trying to get
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: enrolled into this school, they were like, hey, no black
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: students are here, but I can come here. And basically
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: they later got the approval. They were like, Okay, if
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: you can bring twenty five I think it was more
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: black students into this school, then you can start a
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: separate black y'all can be together with the white folks,
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: but y'all can start your own separate black situation and
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: where you're teaching the black students how to fly. So
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: John and Cornelius taught the first all black class at
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: the school in nineteen thirty two. So Willa Brown was
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: in good company, in good pioneering company. Willa started taking
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: lessons at the segregated Harlem Airport, which was in Oaklawn, Illinois,
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: and she did have some setbacks though, so off to
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: a good start, lots of momentum, but in nineteen thirty
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: four she was in a car accident that broke a
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: lot of her bones, and after recovering from her injuries,
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: she started flying lessons again and she took classes at
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: the Curtis Write School and she took them with Cornelis coffee.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: So in nineteen thirty five she got a master's mechanics
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: certificate and her student pilot's license Student because she'll get
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: other pilot's license later. This is her student pilot's license,
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: and she joined the Challenger Air Pilots Association, which was
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: a black flying club in Chicago. Willa wanted more black
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: women to be pilots, so she tried to get more publicity.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: Six, she went to the Chicago Defenders Newsroom, a black newspaper,
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: to cover an air show that would be sponsored by
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: the Challenger Air Pilots Association, and so there is a
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: recounting of this incident. Enoch Waters, who was the paper's editor,
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: covered the show and even took a ride in Willa's
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: plane and they did figure eights and flipovers, and Enoch
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: said that he wasn't convinced of her competence until they
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: landed smoothly, so he had to see it until he
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: believed it. I guess, I mean, I'm like, you did
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: all those you didn't figure as and flipovers, and you
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: weren't convinced then, I don't know. He said it was
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: a little scary, but that went well, and black newspapers
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: in general did kind of follow Willa Brown and cover
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: her accomplishments when she got new licenses and covered some
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: of the events that black pilots were participating in, so
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: they she helped in being forward and going to people
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: and trying to get the coverage to make sure that
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: what they were doing people knew about it, because there were,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: of course, not only detractors, but people who were outwardly
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: hateful about black pilots and their ability, literally their competence,
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: Like you know, I think Enoch was kind of joking,
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: but literally people were questioning their competence. I mean that
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: was probably a tongue of a pretty tongue in cheek
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: because there were a lot of comments about how black
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: people can't do that, like they don't have the the
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: sound judgment, they don't have the capability mentally, you know,
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: I'm sure sometimes they probably tried to back that up
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: with forms of scientific racism. They don't have the actual
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: capability of flying planes. They can't do it, so what
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: are you talking about? Especially black women. So you know,
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: as we know today and all the disinformation and misinformation
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: that spread online, the intentional effort to put out the
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: truth was an important part of combating the disinformation that
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: was happening from the people who just didn't want black
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: people to exist at all in any way, shape and
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: form anyway, and definitely not pilot planes. So Willa and
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: other black female pilots formed the Chicago Girls Flight Club.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: And I think when I.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: Was looking stuff up, there was also so this was
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: a for the black women. There was another group called
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: the Chicago Girls Fly Club or something like that that
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: was very close a name which had to be had
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: to have been purposeful, like, you know, if people were
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: hearing about this thing they accidentally, you know, they could
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: have confused one for the other, which probably worked out
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: well for them. But that is just me speculating. But
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: the names are very close. So Willa, John Cornelius, and
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: other black pilots also formed the National Negro Airmen Association
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: of America in nineteen thirty seven. The organization later was
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: renamed the National Airmen Association of America, and Cornelius in
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: nineteen thirty seven opened the Coffee School of Aeronautics around
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: the same time, so Willa had to have been going
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: to school up until this point. She got her master's
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: degree in business administration from Northwestern University in nineteen thirty seven.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: So this track that she started on before she got
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: into aviation, she was still on. She was still interested
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: in business administration. I'm not it definitely came in handy
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: in the work that she was doing. I'm not sure
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: why she continued to go on this path, but her
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: background knowledge and business administration clearly was helpful for the
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: work that she was doing and helping run the coffee school.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: Because she helped Cornelius run the coffee school and helping
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: how she kind of had the wherewithal to market the
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: accomplishments that they were making. Clearly, it was a good
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: base for her to become the person that she became
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: an aviation and speaking of. In April nineteen thirty eight,
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: she got her solo pilot's license, and then in June
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: she got her private pilot's license, and that license allowed
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: her to fly non paying passengers in her plane.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: So I'm curious just jog my memory for y'all. Do y'all.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: Are y'all okay with flying on the smaller planes or
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: planes at all?
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: I am? I am. I've been on two really small
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: planes like and that you it is a little scarier
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: because it's moving all around and I can only imagine
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: at this time different technology. So I don't know how
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: cool I would have been with it back then. Generally, yes, recently,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: because we keep hearing news about how the planes are
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: falling apart, I've gotten a little more nervous, but generally yes, okay.
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: I don't have many experiences with smaller planes, but in general,
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: it's going to what medication I'm on at that point
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: in time, a B, how big the flight is, and
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: how rough the flight is, because I do get motion
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: sickness pretty badly, so all of that kind of encompasses that.
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: And then like, yeah, after years, I've seen all the
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: reports of like all the planes falling apart that I'm like,
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: I'm a little nervous, but not like it's not debilitating.
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: But I don't know about small planes, Like I think
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: I've on one small plane. I can't remember my reaction
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: other than oh God, it's small, that's it, okay, cool.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just trying to think about what it was
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: like for her back then to fly those smaller planes.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: She did end up, I think it was by nineteen
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: forty she ended up getting her She ended up buying
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: her own airplane, so she was definitely moving forward pretty quickly.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: And there is there was in the Pittsburgh Courier, which
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: was a black newspaper, they covered her accomplishment of getting
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: her private pilot's license, and she responded to that coverage
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: with a letter to the editor and she said this,
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: when I whipped my airplane through the designated spins spirals,
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: figure eights, verticals and passed the written tests last month
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: to get a private pilot's license, I was overcome with
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: joy to have accomplished my desire. But there also came
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: a deep satisfaction to know that our newspapers and magazines
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: showed such curtis as to carry articles and pictures concerning
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: this event. So she, in this kind of made a
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: narrative situation, was expressing her love for knowing that people
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: were actually paying attention and people were doing the work
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: to cover it. She had to take her written and
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: her flight tests a couple of times though, after failing
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: portions of the exam and not getting passing scores on
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: her flights. But on August nineteen thirty nine, she got
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: her limited commercial license and also Willa and Cornelius Coffee
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: got married. And I've seen different days for this, but
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: it looked like it was nineteen thirty nine, and it
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: was that same year that President Franklin Roosevelt signed the
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: Civil Pilot Training Act into law. So this is kind
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: of where we start to see Willa Brown's reach expand
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: beyond their circle in Chicago. So this act authorized the
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: Civil Aviation Authority to train civilian pilots through educational institutions.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: According to the rules of this act, the program had
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: to include black folks, so they were like, it's got
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: to have black folks in it. And another stipulation was
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: that some of the trainees had to be non college students.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: And the National Airmen Association of America applied to the
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: Civil Aviation Authority and it planned on using the Coffee
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: School of Aeronautics for flight training. So from now on,
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: when I bring up the National Airmen's Association, I'm just
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: going to say in AAA because it's kind of a mouthful,
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: and I won't say that too often, so don't worry, y'all.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: So Willa worked to get the NAAA accepted to the
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: Civil Pilot Training program, and in nineteen thirty nine, it
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: was accepted as a training provider. Huge deal. So now they,
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: through their school can train black pilots. And Time magazine
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: reported on this accomplishment and a September nineteen thirty nine issue,
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: and this is what they said. One civilian flyer who
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: was highly pleased by ciaa's announcement was a cream and
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: coffee skinned negress of twenty nine. There is a small
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: chance that Willa Beatrice Brown will ever fly for the.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Army or Navy.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: Sorry for laughing, but as secretary of the National Airman's Association,
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: in one of the few Negro aviatrixes holding a limited
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: commercial license, she has labored mightily to whip up interest
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: in flying among negroes and to get them a share
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: in ceaa's training program. And so I'm just laughing because
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: they're like, oh, she can do this, but she's definitely
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: not gonna do that. She's never going to fly for
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: the army or navy. So they had to reel back
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: the complimentary attitude just a little bit. They had to
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: temper that. They were like, calm down, you know, you're
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: not going to get all that so soon, not so fast.
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: But the person who was assigned to write that was like,
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: I don't want to do this, but fine, I'll do
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: it this way.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: That's true, Samantha, They probably really did it.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: They're probably like, I have to write I have to
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: write a complimentary passage about a black woman today.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Oh God. Yeah.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: So, Willa and her colleagues from other colleges and institutions
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: who were involved in the training program formed the Aeronautical
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: Association of Negro Schools, and she became the organization's vice president.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: And they wanted to address students' concerns like getting college
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: credits for program courses and getting adequate equipment. In nineteen
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: forty she got her ground instructor rating, which allowed her
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: to teach ground school courses and as kind of an
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: example of how she was starting to reach beyond and
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: really trying to make her reach massive and the scope
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: of how she was trying to get more black people
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: into aviation more massive. In nineteen forty one, she wrote
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: a letter to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and she said,
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: during the past three years, I have devoted full time
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: to aviation, and for the most part, marked progress has
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: been made. I have, however, encountered several difficulties, several of
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: them I have handled very well, and some have been
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: far too great for me to master. So she's acknowledging
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: some of the difficulties that she went to, some of
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: the discrimination that she was facing and facing in her
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: attempted advocacy for other more black people to get into aviation.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: And she's writing to the first Lady, so she knows
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: how big of a deal this is. Not just because
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: she feels that more black people should be entire and
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: allowed to be an aviation and have the resources and
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: the means to learn how to do so, but also because,
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: like you know, the country could probably benefit from this too,
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: and from having more people in aviation, especially at this time.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: So when new rules for federal pilot's licenses were passed
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: in nineteen forty one, Willa took tests to get her
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: commercial airmin certificate because they were changing the rules and
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: I think they were going to get rid of the
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: limited commercial license that she had, so she took those tests. However,
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: she failed, and she reverted back to a private pilot's license.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: When the US entered World War Two in nineteen forty one,
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: though the pilot training program, which was civilian, switched to
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: training pilots for serving in the military. So at this
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: point women couldn't go to training classes, and many of
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: the black training schools closed. But in nineteen forty two,
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: the CAAA and that it was authorized to train black
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: people as non combat pilots, and initially they approved training
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty black pilots. Half of those would
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: be at Tuskegee and the other half would be at
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: Coffee School, which is where Willa was. So the Tuskegee
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: Institute and the Coffee School stayed open and they kept
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: training black students, and Willa and the Coffee School trained
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: some students who became Tuskegee Airmen, and Willa was gaining
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: popularity for her own flying. She was described as a
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: quote woman who swears, occasionally, plays cards once a week,
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: likes to sip cocktails at the bar, and simply craves
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: gospel music. So there's a little bit more of her
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: personality showing up beyond her piloting that she did, and
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: besides the advocacy work that she was a little bit
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: more of her personality showing up, so we can know
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: a little bit more about Willa the p And she
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: also helped establish the first desegregated Civil Air Patrol unit
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: in the country. The Civil Air Patrol supported using civilian
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: resources to aid the war effort, and the first black
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: unit of the Civil Air Patrol was established in Illinois
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: in February of nineteen forty two, and Willa more first
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: became the first black member and first female officer in
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: the Civil Air Patrol on February twenty fifth of that year,
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: and she had different appointments and she was commissioned as
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: a second lieutenant and the one hundred and eleventh Flight
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: Squadron of the Illinois Civil Air Patrol began operations in
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: March nineteen forty two. Most of those pilots, I think
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: there were twenty five where there were men and women,
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: and most of those pilots in the unit were from
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: Coffee school. So in nineteen forty three, when Willa got
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: her mechanics license, she became the first American woman to
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: have both a mechanics and a commercial pilot's license. So
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: Willa's getting more into bringing other people up. So she's
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: got her own accomplishments. Now she's trying to bring more
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: young people into flying. So in nineteen forty four, she
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: started a recruiting drive to enroll five thousand children as
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: members of a junior airman's group. But soon she decided
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: that she was gonna kind of leave that effort behind.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: She passed it along to someone else. I believe it
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: was Cornelius who took over after her, but she left
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: it says she was temporarily retiring from aviation to fight
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: the New Deal's racist policies, so she wanted full integration,
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: not segregated units. So the segregated units wasn't good enough
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: for her, and she said, quote, the only way Negro
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: people can tear down the network of New Deal dishonesty, prejudice, crookedness,
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: mistreatment of Negro soldiers, and emptied gestures to the Negro
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: race is to out the New Deal administry.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: She started to focus.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: More on politics, and in nineteen forty four she was
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: a second ward Republican precinct captain. So what she did
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: was organized efforts for people to go door to door
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: advocating for the election of Republicans. And she said, I intend,
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: through the Crusader organization to expose the New Deal's pretended
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: friendliness to the Negro race.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: So you can see how she is.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: Bringing more of her politics into the work that she
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: had already been doing as trying to bring more black
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: people into aviation, and her calling out this falsity which
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: still happens today, of pandering but not actually instituting well
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: thought out and actually things that productively and significantly changed
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: conditions for black people. So things that looked really shiny
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: on the outside that, by Willa's estimation, wasn't good enough.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: Now there's of course a longer and deeper argument amongst
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: black people about whether integration or continuing segregation segregated units
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: was well.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: Lots of different layers to it, whether.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: Segregated units was good enough, whether integration was as a
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: whole great better for black people in terms of what
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: black people would have gotten out of it, Lots of
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: other layers of arguments and debates along those lines, But
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: in terms of Willa, she was not interested in segregated units.
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: So Willa also said that the Republican Party was quote
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: the party of the people, the party of redemption, the
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: party of law and order, in the party of justice
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: and equality. So Willa was definitely thinking from a partisan
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: way this time, thinking of, Okay, this is a party
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: that's you know, this is these are the ideological lines
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: that I want to be aligned with. So the war
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: ended in nineteen forty five, and by the end of
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: the war, the Coffee School had trained more than fifteen
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: hundred black students, including some that went to the ninety
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: ninth Pursuit Squadron, which was an all black unit that
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: went to North Africa. But Cornelius and Willa they were
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: against desegregated units and they wanted integrated once and Willa said,
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: there is not segregation in the CAAA programs, and there
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: have been no race riots or violence because of this fact.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: So she was saying, look at these examples of situations
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: in which there was integration and there weren't just segregated units,
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: and everything's going just fine. Like the fear that you
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: might have of there being race riots or something some
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: extreme hostility because of integration isn't actually one that's based
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: on anything legitimate, is what she was saying. The Coffee
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: School closed once the war ended, the government contracts were done,
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: and Willa became involved even more heavily in politics. In
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: nineteen forty six, she became the first black woman to
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: run for a congressional.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Seat in Chicago's first district.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: She ran as a Republican and lost in the primary election,
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: and Willa and Cornelius divorced in nineteen forty seven, and
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: she ran for Congress in nineteen forty eight in nineteen
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: fifty as well, but she lost, and I guess that
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: kind of got out. She was like, Okay, the people
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: have spoken to what it seemed like. She tapped out
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: of politics, and in nineteen fifty five, in her third marriage,
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: she married Reverend J. H. Chapel or Chappelle, I'm not
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: sure how you pronounce it, who was a minister of
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: the Westside Community Church in Chicago, and she was active
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: in the church. She later discovered herself during this time
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: as being a church woman, and in nineteen sixty two
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: she started teaching in schools again. She taught typing, hand
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: and secretarial classes, so back to the beginning, kind of
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: like a full circle because she was teaching typing and
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: writing and secretarial classes earlier too. But in nineteen seventy
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: one she retired from teaching, and the Federal Aviation Administration
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: appointed her to its Women's Advisory Board. Three years later,
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: she resigned from the board and her husband died in
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: nineteen eighty four, and Willa herself died on July eighteenth,
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: nineteen ninety two, from complications of a stroke. At the
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: time of her death, she was eighty six years old,
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: and she was buried in Lincoln Cemetery in Chicago. So
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: posthumously she was recognized. Two thousand and three, she was
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: inducted into the Aviation Museum of Kentucky's Hall of Fame.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: In twenty sixteen, she was inducted into the Illinois Aviation
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: Hall of Fame, and in twenty twenty two she was
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio.
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: So her legacy has been acknowledged in those very visible ways.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: And that's her story in a nutshell. It's quite the
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: story to wrangle. This is like she just did so
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: much and she was such an advocate for other people,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: and she was very she was involved in teaching in
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of ways. And this kind of makes me regret,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Like when I was in college, you just want to
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: get stuff done. I should have talked to my teachers more.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: Who knows what they did, Like this is wild, that's true. Yeah,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: if I was to like taking like a penmanship class,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: which is important, and I didn't never thought about the
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: teacher but you ask her about her life and she's like, well,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: I ran her office, I was a pilot, I did
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: like all of these different things. It's just quite the
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: story she has.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think I've read that when she was
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: appointed to the Women's Advisory Board, she was listed as
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: a school teacher, which she would have been most recently,
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: but they didn't mention anything about her aviation history. And
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure if that's because they were like, oh,
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: she's an a Women's Advisory Board of the FAA, like
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: they know she had something to do with aviation. But
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: I also wonder if she was like, well, I haven't.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: This is what I'm doing, this is what I've been
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: doing most recently, this is who I am now. And
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: it's not like that's any less than all of the
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: aviation that I did. And clearly I'm here on the
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: board for a reason. I'm just curious as to if
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: that was something that was self chosen, or if that
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: was a slight maybe, or if it wasn't a slight
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: and that was just somebody else who communicated it that way.
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: But it is interesting to think about the reasons behind that.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, especially because it was such a big part of
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: her life for so long. Yeah, I love that Bessy
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Coleman showed up here as well, because we did talk
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: about we've done an episode on her. Right brain is
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: not We've done so much stuff.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Time I'm like convinced I've never talked about something, and
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: I find out a good episode on it in another half,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: it turns.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: Out we haven't ep.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So I was like, I think we've done Bessie
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: cole Man. We definitely talked about pilots before, Yes, we.
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: Have, right, Yeah, I'm pretty sure we talked about it.
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: We did because like it's she's one of those that
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: when you don't have actual teachings and you come from
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: a very white background, you might not not have known
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: about her until college or after the fact when you
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: had to do your own research. Like definitely one of
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: those conversations.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: And so so if anybody wants to go and listen
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: to more about Bessie Coleman than y'a can go back
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: and listen. So by my estimation, by my list, it
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: was the fifteenth episode that we did female first. I
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: went back and look because I'm like, didn't we because
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: we've done a lot of episodes.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: We talked about it.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: I just don't know where that would have been years ago,
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: probably too, probably.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Through three years ago. Maybe was it before me? So
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: what you said? Any No, I thought it would have
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: been before the pandemic. Yeah, since the fiftieth we did
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: in office. Yes, well, that makes me feel better. You
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: remember correctly. I was convinced because I remember how she died,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: and we had that conversation in that episode about flights
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: and would you fly? I remember it the pilot. I
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: remember that conversation. Yes, but this was I'm so glad,
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: as always you brought this story to us because I
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: had not heard everything about Willi Brown and what she
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: had done. And so it is such a great story,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: and I hope more people hear it. And we always
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: appreciate you giving us all these details and doing all
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: of that work. No problem. I'm happy to share these
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: stories truly. Yes, well, we are always happy to have you.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: Where can the good listeners find you?
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: So y'all can find me online? Y'all can just go
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: to my website, which is Eves Jeffcote dot com.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: Eves is spelled Yves. My last name is Jeff j
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Eff cot Coat.
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: Just like the Thing you Wear dot com, so you
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: can go there and you can get to a lot
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: of other places From there, you can join my newsletter.
• 43:33
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• 43:35
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• 43:38
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• 43:41
  Speaker 3: find me there at not Apologizing And if you're a
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: social media person then that will be basically the only
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: way you can find me directly on social media. And
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: you can also find me on the podcast on Theme,
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: which is a podcast about black storytelling. And you can
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: also go to listen to all the other episodes of
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: Female First that we've done here on stuff Mom Never
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: Told You.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, the many episodes we have done. And Eves
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: makes great content, as hopefully you all know if you
• 44:14
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• 44:17
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• 44:37
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