Cornelius Robinson Coffey (September 6, 1903,

Newport, Arkansas Newport is a city in and the county seat of Jackson County, Arkansas, United States located on the White River northeast of Little Rock. The population was 7,879 at the 2010 census. Newport is home to a campus of the Arkansas State University ...

– March 2, 1994,

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

) was an American aviator. Alongside

Willa Brown Willa Beatrice Brown (January 22, 1906 – July 18, 1992) was an American aviator, lobbyist, teacher, and civil rights activist. She was the first African American woman to earn a pilot's license in the United States, the first African Ame ...

, he was the first

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

to create a non-university-affiliated aeronautical school in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Career

Coffey helped integrate African American pilots into the American aviation industry. He worked with his friend

John C. Robinson John Cleveland Robinson (April 10, 1817 – February 18, 1897) had a long and distinguished career in the United States Army, fighting in numerous wars and culminating his career as a Union Army brigadier general of volunteers and brevet major ...

, together, they formed the Challenger Air Pilots Association. He opened the Coffey School of Aeronautics in

Robbins, Illinois Robbins is a village southwest of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The population was 4,629 at the 2020 census. Darren E. Bryant is the current mayor of Robbins. It is the second oldest Black incorporated town in the north follow ...

with his wife,

, where many African American pilots were trained, including some of the

Tuskegee Airmen The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of primarily African American military pilots (fighter and bomber) and airmen who fought in World War II. They formed the 332d Fighter Group and the 477th Fighter Group, 477th Bombardment Group (Medium) of the ...

. The school moved to the former Harlem Airport, which was located at 87th Street and Harlem Avenue in the late 1930s. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he taught aeronautics at the Lewis Holy Name School of Aeronautics in

Romeoville, Illinois Romeoville is a village in Will County, Illinois, United States. The village is located southwest of Chicago on the Des Plaines River. Per the 2020 census, the population was 39,863. It is located in the southwest suburban area of Chicago near I ...

and at Chicago's

Dunbar Vocational High School Dunbar Vocational High School (also known as Dunbar Vocational Career Academy, or DVCA) is a public 4–year vocational high school located in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Dunbar opened in 1942 ...

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. In September 2023 Coffey will be inducted into the

National Aviation Hall of Fame The National Aviation Hall of Fame (NAHF) is a museum, annual awards ceremony and learning and research center that was founded in 1962 as an Ohio non-profit corporation in Dayton, Ohio, United States, known as the "Birthplace of Aviation" with it ...

in Dayton, Ohio.

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. Pilots flying to

Midway Airport Chicago Midway International Airport , typically referred to as Midway Airport, Chicago Midway, or simply Midway, is a major commercial airport on the Southwest side of Chicago, Illinois, located approximately 12 miles (19 km) from the Lo ...

make a course correction over

Lake Calumet Lake Calumet is the largest body of water within the city of Chicago. Formerly a shallow, postglacial lake draining into Lake Michigan, it has been changed beyond recognition by industrial redevelopment and decay. Parts of the lake have been dr ...

which is known as the Coffey Fix. Coffey's Piper Tri-Pacer 135 aircraft was scheduled to be on exhibit from 2016 at the

Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum The Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum, the largest aviation museum in Illinois, occupied part of the grounds of the decommissioned Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois. It and the base were named for Octave Chanute, railroad engineer and a ...

as part of the exhibit, ''Barnstormers, Wing-walkers, and Entrepreneurs: 150 Years of Aviation in Illinois''.

References

External links

Cornelius Coffey profile

Interview with three Tuskegee Airmen: Robert Martin, Dr. Quentin P. Smith, and Shelby Westbrook
at the

Pritzker Military Museum & Library The Pritzker Military Museum & Library (formerly Pritzker Military Library) is a non-profit museum and a research library for the study of military history on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. The institution was founded in 2003, and its spe ...

in October 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:Coffey, Cornelius People from Newport, Arkansas People from Chicago African-American history of the United States military 1902 births 1994 deaths African-American aviators Aviators from Arkansas Aviators from Illinois

Career

Awards and honors

Legacy

References

Further reading

External links