Curtiss–Wright Aeronautical University was a flight school in Chicago, Illinois founded by aircraft manufacturer Curtiss-Wright. Open from 1929 until 1953, the university was the first accredited flight school in the Midwest which accepted black students and instructors. While it opened as an all-white school, after Cornelius Coffey and John C. Robinson threatened to sue the school for denying them entrance in 1930, the superintendent agreed to conduct segregated classes for black students if the two could prove that enough black students would enroll. The two founded the Challenger Air Pilots Association to develop the city's black aviation community, and by 1932 they had organized enough people to begin an all-black class. When the school lost access to its original airfield in 1933, its