Today on #WorldPilotsDay, i’ll highlight black pilots who broke barriers 👨🏿✈️👩🏿✈️
—A THREAD—
In 1921, Bessie Coleman became the first black licensed pilot.
When she developed an interest in flying, women and people of color had no flight training opportunities in the… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Willa Brown was the first black woman to earn both a pilot's license and a commercial license. (Bessie got hers in France)
Marlon D. Green, was an Air Force Pilot who fought to desegregate the Airline Industry. He became the 1st black pilot hired by a major airline.
Jill E. Brown became the first female African-American pilot for a major US airline in 1978 when she joined Texas International Airlines as a pilot.
Ahmet Ali Celikten was the world's first black fighter pilot.
He served in the air forces of the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey. He was a veteran of World War 1 and the Turkish War of Independence.
Jesse L. Brown was the first black US Navy pilot. He flew 20 combat missions before being shot down in 1950 during the Korean War.
Eugene Jacques Bullard was the first African American military combat pilot. Often referred to as the “Black Swallow of Death” for his courage during missions, he faced incredible obstacles to become the only African-American pilot in World War 1.
He grew up in Georgia, flew for France in BOTH world wars, ran a Paris nightclub, spoke 3 languages and unironically owned a pet monkey.
Special mention to the Tuskegee Airmen became the first African American flying unit in the U.S. military and fought in World War II.
The Tuskegee Airmen epitomized courage and heroism.
Lt. Col. Harry Stewart Jr. is one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen of World War II.
He survived 43 combat missions during World War II and is one of only a dozen remaining Tuskegee Airmen from the famed “Red Tails” fighter group still alive.
In 2001, Shawna Rochelle Kimbrell became the first Black woman to serve as a fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force.
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On this day in 1947, Activist & member of the Black Panther Party Mark Clark was born.
He was assassinated together with Fred Hampton by Chicago police & FBI, both at 21 years Old.
William O'Neal, an FBI informant, infiltrated the Panthers & set up them up for $300
A THREAD
In Illinois, where Fred Hampton was born, Black communities faced relentless police harassment and systemic barriers to essential services like housing and education in predominantly Black areas.
The Black Panther party, a creation of Huey Newton and fellow student Bobby Seale, insisted on black nationalist response to racial discrimination. The party’s Illinois chapter was opened in 1967 and Hampton joined in 1968, aged just 20.
Vicente Guerrero, a black and indigenous mule driver, became a revolutionary leader, Mexico’s 2nd president and abolished but ultimately executed.
The first Black President of Mexico.
A THREAD
Born in 1782 in Tixtla, Guerrero’s Afro-Mexican father, Juan Pedro, and Indigenous mother, Guadalupe Saldaña, shaped his roots. He worked as a mule driver, spoke Nahuatl, and built deep ties with Indigenous communities.
In 1810, he joined the Mexican War of Independence under José María Morelos. Despite no formal education, Guerrero’s courage and tactics stood out, fighting Spanish colonial rule with the motto “La patria es primero” (My country comes first).
Aunt Polly Jackson, was an escaped slave who worked as an agent on the Underground Railroad helping others escape.
She was known for fighting off slave catchers with a butcher knife and a kettle of boiling water.
A THREAD!
Aunt Polly Jackson, a former enslaved person, was fed up with the harsh and inhumane treatment that was meted out to her even in her old age and decided to escape to freedom.
She decided to escape via the Underground Railroad. She escaped and ended up in the North settling in Ohio in a settlement known as Africa, a settlement of escaped African Americans who had been offered land to settle.
On this day in 1865, enslaved people in Texas were notified by Union Civil War soldiers about the abolition of slavery. This was 2.5 years after the final Emancipation Proclamation which freed all enslaved Black Americans. #Juneteenth
But Slavery continued…
A THREAD
In 1866, a year after the amendment was ratified, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina began to lease out convicts for labor.
This made the business of arresting black people very lucrative, thus hundreds of white men were hired by these states as police officers.
Their primary responsibility being to search out and arrest black peoples who were in violation of ‘Black Codes’
Eatonville was the first all-Black city that was incorporated in Florida in 1887, located 6 miles north of Orlando.
It's the oldest black incorporated municipality in the U.S. It is the first town successfully established by African American freedmen.
THREAD!
The founding of this town stands as an enormous achievement for once enslaved black men and women. Having to live life being considered inferior to the white majority, African Americans finally found some freedom for themselves in Eatonville.
The town is the childhood home of Zora Neale Hurston, the most famous writer of the Harlem Renaissance she described it in 1935: "the city of five lakes, three croquet courts, 300 brown skins, 300 good swimmers, plenty guavas, two schools and no jailhouse." .
Gert Schramm, aged 15, was arrested and imprisoned in Nazi Germany for the 'crime' of being Mixed Race. He was the only Black prisoner at Buchenwald.
A THREAD
In May 1944, the Gestapo( official secret police of Nazi Germany) arrested Schramm in Erfurt under Rassenschande (racial defilement) laws, which criminalized relationships between “Aryans” and “non-Aryans” to enforce Nazi racial purity.
Schramm’s heritage—Black American father, Jack Brankson, an engineer, and German mother, Marianne Schramm—made him a target. His existence defied the Nazis’ hateful ideology of purity.