Aviation pioneer, Azellia White (1913 – 2019) was the first black woman to obtain her pilot's license in the United States. She co-founded a flight school and an airport dedicated to the black community.
Beginnings of aviation
Azellia was born on June 3, 1913 in Gonzales, Texas, in the midst of racial segregation in the United States. Aviation was then in its infancy. When Azellia is eight years old, young Bessie Coleman becomes the first woman to earn a pilot's license. A patent that she obtained in France, after having learned to fly at the Caudron brothers' flight school:at the time, aviation schools in the United States categorically refused to welcome a black woman.
In 1936, Azellia married Hulon "Pappy" White. In 1940, preparing for the entry into the war of the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked for the opening of the Army Air Corps to black pilots and technicians. The Tuskegee Airmen , a group of African-American airmen, were created in Tuskegee, Alabama. Hulon took a job there as a mechanic, and the couple moved to Alabama.
The Sky Ranch Flying Service
In 1941, the First Lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt, visited Tuskegee. One of the Tuskegee Airmen takes him on a plane ride for an hour. Favorably impressed, the first lady indicates, before leaving, that she intends to ask her husband to let these pilots take part in the aerial combat of the Second World War. She keeps her word, and wins her case.
Trained by members of the Tuskegee Airmen , Azellia White begins to learn piloting in Tuskegee, on Taylorcraft planes. In March 1946, she became the first black woman to earn her pilot's license in the United States. After the war, in 1946, she co-founded with her husband and two members of the Tuskegee Airmen , Ben Stevenson and Elton "Ray" Thomas the Sky Ranch Flying Service , which serves as both an airport and a flight school for the black community.
A pioneering spirit
Azellia White is very active and popular within the airport. She regularly takes students flying, and likes to surprise them with aerial acrobatics. She also often carries passengers for convenient trips. In this age of racial segregation, overland travel is often dangerous for African Americans, especially in southern states; assaults and harassment are commonplace. Azellia thus regularly takes her niece from town to town for shopping. In heaven, she says, there are no more racial barriers.
The Sky Ranch Flying Service ends up closing its doors. In 2018, Azellia was inducted into the Texas Aviation Hall of Fame . She also receives the Trailblazer Award of the Black Pilots of America , for her “pioneering spirit in forging a path to the field of aviation “). Azellia White died in September 2019, at the age of 106.