American Wings: Chicago's Pioneering Black Aviators and the Race for Equality in the Sky - Softcover

Smith, Sherri L.; Wein, Elizabeth

 
9780593323991: American Wings: Chicago's Pioneering Black Aviators and the Race for Equality in the Sky
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593323998 ISBN 13: 9780593323991
Verlag: Penguin Young Readers Group, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

From the acclaimed author of Flygirl and the bestselling author of Code Name Verity comes the thrilling and inspiring true story of the desegregation of the skies.

“This beautiful and brilliant history of not only what it means to be Black and dream of flying but to, against every odd, do so, completely blew me away.” —Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award Winner for Brown Girl Dreaming

In the years between World War I and World War II, aviation fever was everywhere, including among Black Americans. But what hope did a Black person have of learning to fly in a country constricted by prejudice and Jim Crow laws, where Black aviators like Bessie Coleman had to move to France to earn their wings?

American Wings follows a group of determined Black Americans: Cornelius Coffey and Johnny Robinson, skilled auto mechanics; Janet Harmon Bragg, a nurse; and Willa Brown, a teacher and social worker. Together, they created a flying club and built their own airfield south of Chicago. As the U.S. hurtled toward World War II, they established a school to train new pilots, teaching both Black and white students together and proving, in a time when the U.S. military was still segregated, that successful integration was possible.

Featuring rare historical photographs, American Wings brings to light a hidden history of pioneering Black men and women who, with grit and resilience, battled powerful odds for an equal share of the sky.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sherri L. Smith and Elizabeth Wein

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

PROLOGUE

A Dream Takes Flight

Omaha, Nebraska, 1919

It was going to cost three dollars to ride—about $50 in 2023, but the work of several days, or even weeks, in 1919. Cornelius Robinson Coffey had the money from his side job running special deliveries for the Omaha post office. But the rule was white people first. He stood aside with the other onlookers in the cold Nebraska field and waited his turn, his eyes on the January sky.

Overhead, an airplane buzzed, boldly announcing man’s dominion over the air.

Aviation was a fairly new craze, the Wright brothers having made their first flight barely fifteen years earlier, on December 17, 1903. But it hadn’t taken long for the world to turn the airplane into a weapon of war. Today’s barnstormer—one of those pilots who staged air shows in farmers’ fields, selling tickets for quick plane rides and setting up shop in local barns—was a World War I veteran, recently home from Europe since the end of the Great War in 1918. Even the barnstormer’s plane was a veteran of sorts. His Curtiss JN-4, a type nicknamed the Jenny, was one of the little two-seater biplanes that had been used to train American men to fly for the war effort.

White American men, that is.

Born on September 6, 1903, Coffey—as most people would call him in later years—was Black. And at only fifteen years old, he was the same age as the entire field of modern aviation. His home state of Nebraska had been a hub of aviation activity from the start, with the Wright brothers performing at the State Fair in Omaha in 1910.

While the Midwest wasn’t the Deep South, segregation and racism still held sway. White customers went first. After waiting patiently for his turn to come, Coffey finally fished out the price for his first ride in a genuine airplane.

The pilot must have been astonished. This Black boy had the gall and the money to take a ride in the sky. The barnstormer turned to the other onlookers—undoubtedly white people—and said, “When I get through with him, that kid ain’t going to even look at another airplane.”

But Coffey’s money was green, so the man took it, and let the boy climb up into the plane. The Jenny was built of fabric stretched over a wooden frame, a single-engine biplane with stacked wings and two open cockpits, one behind the other. Coffey most likely rode in the front cockpit, where the pilot could keep an eye on him.

The little wood-and-fabric Jenny rattled down the field and leapt up into the air.

In those days, there was hardly anyplace you could get a really smooth ride. Outside the city, scarcely any roads were paved. Inside the city, they were often paved with cobblestones, with embedded trolley tracks an extra hazard. Coffey knew what speed was like—he rode a Henderson motorcycle. But the silken speed of flight was something he could never have imagined. From the moment the Jenny’s wheels left the ground, he loved it. It didn’t bother him in the least that the pilot was doing his darnedest to scare the living wits out of the uppity little Black kid with his pocket money and his belief that he should beallowed to fly.

Everyone said Black people weren’t made for flying. People said they were cowards. They were lazy. It took brains and guts to be a pilot.

But this kid seemed to have both.

With every loop and dive, Coffey just had more fun. The pilot upped his game, tilting the plane into rolls and spins. He might have even scared himself a little, flying upside down, or nosing the plane into a dive, only pulling up in the nick of time to skim the treetops.

“I think it was rougher on him than on me,” Coffey said calmly afterward.

Three dollars bought fifteen minutes of thrills in the sky, and when they landed, the pilot had to admit he was impressed.

“Well, you know, if I was going to be here for any length of time, I’d probably teach you to fly,” he told the boy.

Coffey had the feel for it, no doubt. But everyone knew Black people couldn’t learn to fly. Cornelius Coffey had likely been told that, too.

So he hopped back onto his Henderson motorcycle and headed home. He wouldn’t come near another plane for nearly a decade.

But when the time came, he would prove just how wrong everyone had been.

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Verlag
Penguin Young Readers Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2025
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593323998
ISBN 13 
9780593323991
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
384
Kontakt zum Hersteller
G.P. Putnam's Sons
https://www.penguin.com/putnam/

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NEW YORK
NY
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USA
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