Flying With America's Most Famous Female Aviators
Dozens of talented women preceded Amelia Earhart, and thousands have followed, and each has her own groundbreaking story to tell
- By Patricia Trenner
- Smithsonian.com, October 22, 2009
(National Air and Space Museum)
Brown was the first African-American woman to earn a commercial flight license in the United States in 1937. She was a founding member of the National Airmen Association, which lobbied for the inclusion of black pilots in the U.S. Army Air Corps, and as a flight instructor she trained more than 200 students who eventually became Tuskegee Airmen, the all-black aerial combat unit that flew with distinction in World War II.