Captain Theresa M. Claiborne made history in 1982 as the first Black woman pilot in the United States Air Force, later becoming an aircraft commander and instructor on the KC-135. After seven years on active duty and 13 years in the Air Force Reserves, she joined United Airlines in 1990, rising through the ranks to retire in 2024 as Captain of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner with over 23,000 flight hours.

Throughout her career, she has broken barriers in aviation and championed opportunities for women of color. She is President Emeritus of Sisters of the Skies, a nonprofit supporting Black women in aviation, and serves on the boards of the Grand Dames of Aviation and the WASP Museum.

Her trailblazing contributions have earned her numerous honors, including the 2025 Ebony Power 100 STEM Trailblazer Award, induction into the Women in Aviation International Pioneer Hall of Fame (2025), and the Katherine Wright Trophy (2024).

Captain Claiborne continues to inspire future aviators through mentorship, leadership, and her unwavering commitment to ensuring the skies reflect the diversity of those who dream to fly.

On November 14, 1960, six years after Brown v. Board of Education declared segregated schools unconstitutional, six-year-old Leona Tate entered history as one of the four young girls who desegregated New Orleans’ public elementary schools—the first in the Deep South to do so. Alongside Gail Etienne and Tessie Prevost, Tate integrated McDonogh No. 19 Elementary School in the city’s Lower Ninth Ward, while Ruby Bridges entered William Frantz School just minutes later. The event, broadcast across the nation and the world, became a defining moment of the Civil Rights Movement. Escorted by federal marshals, the girls’ walk into school that morning signaled not only the dismantling of legalized segregation in New Orleans but also the courage of children who bore the weight of a nation’s struggle for justice.

In 2009, she founded the Leona Tate Foundation for Change (LTFC), serving as its volunteer Executive Director until 2021. Under her leadership, LTFC provided critical community programs, including free summer camps, after-school tutoring, adult literacy initiatives, holiday drives, and food pantries. The foundation also managed the Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum, which preserved and shared the neighborhood’s layered history of resilience.

Six decades later, Tate transformed that same site of history into a living institution for change. In 2020, in partnership with Alembic Community Developers, LTFC acquired and redeveloped the historic McDonogh No. 19 campus. Reopened in 2022 as the Tate, Etienne, and Prevost (TEP) Center, the site now stands as a mixed-use hub dedicated to the history of school desegregation, the Civil Rights Movement, and the broader story of Black life in New Orleans. Dr. Tate envisions the TEP Center as both a memorial and a catalyst: a safe space for dialogue, education, and training in anti-racism and restorative justice.

Her work has been recognized through numerous honors, including honorary doctorates from St. Thomas Christian University, Macalester College, and Tulane University. Beyond her public leadership, Tate treasures her role as a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, grounding her commitment to community in a deep devotion to family.

Dr. Leona Tate’s journey—from a six-year-old child at the forefront of desegregation to a nationally recognized leader in education, activism, and community restoration—embodies the enduring struggle for racial justice and the power of personal resilience to shape collective history.