Nearly 30 years before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the “I Have A Dream” speech from the nation’s capital, Army Lt. William Powell shared his own dream for America: one where Black people shed the shackles of racism and spread their wings to fly.
The former Army infantryman fell in love with aviation during his stint overseas in World War I and in 1932 became one of the rarest people in the United States: a Black man with a pilot s license.
Powell’s semi-autobiographical book Black Wings, published in 1934, exhorted Black youth to seize the freedom and opportunity of air travel as he did.