America's Black Air Pioneers, 1900-1939: Hubert Julian, Mary Doughtry, Bessie Coleman, Eugene Jacques Bullard - Aeronautical Exploits of Black Pilots

Throughout the period 1900-1939 black Americans were actively involved in aviation. Until 1927 their participation was sporadic and their numbers limited. Between 1927 and 1936 black Americans' interest in aviation grew and several black pilots achieved notoriety through their aeronautical exploits. After 1936, the number of black Americans involved in aviation expanded and a national black flying association was established. Moreover, black Americans began to question discriminatory practices that restricted their opportunities in the air. Thus when the federal government expanded its involvement in civil and military aviation on the eve of World War II, the stage was set for the emergence of a powerful pressure campaign to prohibit racial discrimination in federally-funded aviation training and open the all-white U.S. Army Air Corps to black Americans.

The article analyzes the activities of black Americans in aviation up to 1939. Although only a few black Americans were involved in aviation prior to 1939, reports of their exploits appeared frequently in black newspapers and magazines, especially during the 1930s when one black pilot flew for Ethiopia and several others undertook long-distance publicity flights. By 1939, as the United States began its prewar build-up of civilian and military aviation, several hundred black Americans were actively involved in aviation. The example of these aerial pioneers stimulated the black public's interest in aviation and highlighted the limited opportunities open to blacks who aspired to a career in aviation. Consequently, black Americans launched a pressure campaign to prohibit racial discrimination in federally-sponsored civilian flight training and to force the U.S. Army to admit blacks to the Air Corps, a branch of service then open only to white Americans. As a result of this campaign, hundreds of black youths received civilian pilot training, and in 1941, black Americans were admitted to the Air Corps, albeit on a segregated basis; during World War II, approximately five hundred black pilots flew combat missions in North Africa and Europe. Yet without the efforts and examples of America's black air pioneers, the opportunities which opened up after 1939 might not have been forthcoming. Thus the activities of these early black fliers are an important—but often overlooked—prologue to the opening of military aviation to black Americans, and the desegregation of the United States Air Force after World War II.