Cornelius Robinson Coffey (September 6, 1903, Newport, Arkansas – March 2, 1994, Chicago, Illinois)[1] [2] was an American aviator. Alongside Willa Brown, he was the first African American to create a non-university-affiliated aeronautical school in the United States.


Career

Coffey's work in aviation was in part inspired by the example of pioneering African American aviator Bessie Coleman in the 1920s.[3] Coffey helped integrate African American pilots into the American aviation industry.[4] He worked with his friend John C. Robinson, together, they formed the Challenger Air Pilots Association and in the 1930s integrated the Curtiss–Wright Aeronautical University.[5] He opened the Coffey School of Aeronautics in Robbins, Illinois with his wife, Willa Brown, where many African American pilots were trained, including some of the Tuskegee Airmen.[6][7] Among his other collogues, Coffey also worked with early pilot Janet Harmon Bragg.[3] The school moved to the former Harlem Avenue Airport in Illinois, which was located at 87th Street and Harlem Avenue in the late 1930s. After World War II, he taught aeronautics at the Lewis Holy Name School of Aeronautics in Romeoville, Illinois and at Chicago's Dunbar Vocational High School.[6]

Awards and honors

He received the Dwight H. Green Trophy in 1941. He was honored with a day by the City of Chicago on July 22, 1980. He was inducted into the Illinois Aviation Hall of Fame in 1984.[8] In September 2023 Coffey will be inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio.[9]

Legacy

The Cornelius R. Coffey Aviation Education Foundation was established at the American Airlines Maintenance Academy in Chicago in his honor to train young pilots.[6][10]

Pilots flying to Midway Airport make a course correction over Lake Calumet which is known as the Coffey Fix.[11] Coffey's Piper Tri-Pacer 135 aircraft was scheduled to be on exhibit from 2016 at the Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum as part of the exhibit, Barnstormers, Wing-walkers, and Entrepreneurs: 150 Years of Aviation in Illinois.[10]

References

  1. ↑ Birth certificate available on Ancestry.com, accessed July 8, 2023.
  2. ↑ Date of death Archived 2017-10-15 at the Wayback Machine, mooseroots.com; accessed August 20, 2017.
  3. 1 2 Nettles, Arionne (2023-12-14). "The first Black-owned airport in the U.S. was in Robbins, Illinois". WBEZ. Retrieved 2023-12-15.
  4. ↑ Davis, Edmond (12 August 2011). "Cornelius Coffey". blackpast.org. Retrieved 2015-02-03.
  5. ↑ "The early days of blacks in US aviation". Air Force Magazine. US Army Air Corps. 66: 69. 1983.
  6. 1 2 3 "Cornelius Coffey, Early Black Aviator". Chicago Tribune. 4 March 1994.
  7. ↑ Holway, John B. "Early pioneers". Cobblestone, ISSN 0199-5197, Feb. 1997, Vol. 18, Issue 2.
  8. ↑ Gubert, Betty Kaplan, Miriam Sawyer, and Caroline M. Fannin. Distinguished African Americans in Aviation and Space Science. Westport, CT: Oryx Press, 2001, page 73; ISBN 1573562467.
  9. ↑ "Enshrinee Cornelius Coffey". nationalaviation.org. National Aviation Hall of Fame. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
  10. 1 2 "Cornelius Robinson Coffey profile". aeromuseum.org. Archived from the original on January 27, 2015. Retrieved August 20, 2017.
  11. ↑ "Cornelius Coffey, Early Black Aviator". tribunedigital-chicagotribune. 4 March 1994.

Further reading

  • Garrett, Jim. "Coffey, Cornelius Robinson" in African American National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
  • Lambertson, Giles. 'The Other Harlem', Air & Space Smithsonian, 2010, vol. 24, no.7, pp. 54–59.
  • Hart, Philip S. Flying Free: America's First Black Aviators. Minneapolis, Minn: Lerner Publications Co, 1992. ISBN 0585321221
  • Hunt, Rufus A. The Cofey Intersection. Chicago: J.R.D.B. Enterprises, 1982.
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