Azellia White

Aviation pioneer who became one of the first female AfricanAmerican pilots

AZELLIA White, who has died aged 106, overcame gender and racial discrimination during the mid1940s to become one of the first female African-American pilots.

She was born in Gonzales, Texas, on June 3, 1913; she excelled at high school, after which she took a secretarial job. In 1936 she met Hulon ‘Pappy’ White, and married shortly afterwards. A few years later they moved to Tuskegee, Alabama, where Pappy had been promised a job as a mechanic at Moton Field.

In January 1941 the US War Department announced the creation of the 99th Pursuit Squadron, better known to history as ‘the Tuskegee Airmen’ — an all-black flying unit that would be trained and managed by Charles A Anderson, a self-taught African-American pilot who had established a civilian pilot training programme in 1939.

“Up until early 1939, African-Americans were restricted in what jobs they could do in the armed forces,” Azellia White recalled in 2014. “It wasn’t until President Roosevelt approved Public Law 18, that provided for an expansion of the US Army Air Corps, that these men could finally advance their military careers beyond the kitchen or the motor pool.”

Azellia White was seldom away from her husband’s side, often bringing lunch to her husband and watching the men at work.

“I can remember the excitement when we heard that the First Lady, Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt, was going to come and pay us a visit. There was so much excitement. She was a kind and gracious woman.

“To our amazement, and against the advice of the Secret Service men who’d accompanied her, she asked if she could fly with one of the pilots. This handsome airman was dumbfounded when she climbed into his plane. They were gone for almost an hour!”

Mrs Roosevelt was so impressed that she recommended deployment of the squadron into World War II. “My husband and I saw history made right at that very moment,” said Azellia White.

Between 1941 and 1946, more than 2,000 African-Americans trained at the Tuskegee Institute, nearly three-quarters of them qualifying as pilots.

Inspired by the work going on around her, Azellia White had the urge to fly herself. A string of teachers offered to train her, though she settled on her husband, who had gained his pilot’s licence six months previously. “I lost myself up in the clouds,” she recalled. “It was breathtaking.”

She trained throughout the last months of the war, earning her private pilot’s licence

DISCRIMINATED: Azellia White in March 1946: “It gave me the freedom to travel, which I often didn’t have on land. We lived in the highly segregated South, where going on foot from town to town could be dangerous. Instead, I could head out to the airfield and take a plane to cities where I could shop and be myself.”

After the war the Whites returned to Texas and settled in Houston, where Azellia continued to fly. In 1947, with her husband and two ex-Tuskegee airmen, Ben Stevenson and Elton Thomas, she founded the Sky Ranch Flying Service.

Its headquarters, on a ranch near Houston, became a de facto airport in the South for the African-American community, for whom travelling by land was often dangerous; and the Whites and their team provided flying lessons, as well as charter flights. Their success was shortlived, however, as Sky Ranch had to close after less than 18 months due to the creation of the GI Bill, which caused a downturn in the flight training business.

Azellia White, who was predeceased by her husband, died on September 15, 2019.