There was one thing that connected Lumberton’s Ida Van Smith to Orville and Wilber Wright, and that was the desire to fly – to soar with the birds. From the time Ida was about 3 in 1920, her desire grew as she watched the science of flight unfold after its historic beginning in her North Carolina home.
North Carolina has always felt a sense of pride that the Wright brothers choose the Outer Banks to make their first flight a reality.
Robeson county’s native son, Gov. Angus Wilton McLean, participated in the 25th anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ flight with the unveiling of a 6-foot memorial on Dec. 17, 1928. The memorial, costing $2,500, was carved to resemble a boulder and was engraved with a fitting inscription:
“The First Successful Flight of an airplane was made from this spot by Orville Wright December 17, 1903 in a machine designed and built by Wilber and Orville Wright.”
McLean, then in the last year of his term as governor of North Carolina, was the keynote speaker for the celebration. Standing alongside Orville Wright, McLean spoke of how important the event a quarter of a century earlier had been to the citizens of the state:
“The people of North Carolina, for whom I speak today, are by no means unmindful or unappreciative of the honor which has come to them by reason of the events occurring here when Orville and Wilber Wright sought seclusion on this remote island and began the experiments which resulted in giving to mankind a new agency of transportation. “We are happy in the thought that one of these distinguished brothers, Mr. Orville Wright, is present today to witness these exercises, commemorating the courage, the skill and the ingenuity of his brother and himself. Their achievement has added two names to the long list of great American pioneers.”
He went on to say, “They ignored the doubting and discouragements of an unbelieving world and demonstrated for the first time that man, like the birds of the air, could construct wings and soar for miles over and above the earth.”
Orville Wright was not the only person of note from the aviation world attending that day. Standing near the monument was female pilot, Amelia Earhart. Also present was Senator Hiram Bingham, president of the National Aeronautics Association and a World War I aviator, who had been the proposer of the bill for a Wright memorial in the US Senate. There were also 200 delegates of the International Civil Aeronautics Conference, including Lord Thompson, former head of the British Air Forces. Many members of the Wright brothers’ family with representatives from 40 nations were among the other 3,000 on hand that day.
McLean went on to speak of about how the Wrights blazed the way for the great accomplishments of Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, Clarence Chamberlain and Earhart. He stressed North Carolina citizens’ appreciation of choosing our state to be the site of the early experiments, which placed the name of Kill Devil Hill and Kitty Hawk on the tongue of every airplane enthusiast. He addressed Orville Wright:
“We thank you and welcome you, and at the same time we indulge the hope that you will be spared to return twenty-five years from this date to see us celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of your marvelous work. I verily believe that by that time transportation by air will have advanced to such a digress that it will have become the safest and most comfortable method of rapid transit.”
The white silk parachute that covered the monument was removed as a sailor released 15 carrier pigeons and the national anthem was played.
After the unveiling of the first monument, work then began to select a design for a larger monument to be built. McLean returned on December 17, 1932, to witness the unveiling of the large granite monument that today dominates the sandy dunes.
Pouring rain kept the crowd to about 1,000 who came to view the new monument. The inscription reads:
“In commemoration of the conquest of the air by the brothers Wilber and Orville Wright conceived by genius achieved by dauntless resolution and unconquerable faith.”
It was into this North Carolina aviation legacy that Ida Van Smith grew up. Ida was born in Lumberton, North Carolina, in 1917 to Theodore Deland and Martha Jane Larkin. Ida, along with her older sister and brother, were raised in a very supportive and religious home.
By the time Ida was three, and less than two decades since the Wright Brothers’ flight at Kitty Hawk, she was fascinated by airplanes. In the early 1920s, Ida would sit on her father’s shoulders and watch as pilots visiting Lumberton would perform stunts such as tail spins and looping the loop, as well as having an assistant doing wing-walking stunts.
Growing up, she would tell her father over and over again, “I want to learn to fly.” His reply was that, “No one was going to teach a black girl in Robeson County how to fly.” He wanted to make her dreams come true. So, when she was in high school, he tried hard to no avail to find someone to teach her.
Ida was valedictorian of her 1934 graduating class at Redstone Academy. She earned an education degree with a minor in mathematics from Shaw University. She taught in North Carolina for two years before marrying Edward Smith. They soon moved to Queens, New York, and she taught in the New York City public schools in the fields of history and special education while raising four children. She earned a master’s degree from Queens College of the City University of New York in 1964.
After battling cancer in her late 40s, Ida realized that it was time to follow the dream instilled in her as a young girl. She told her daughter, Jackie Thompson, that it was time for her to learn to fly. Jackie said, “Momma, no!” But she had heard ‘no’ too many times before. Ida would not give up on her dream.
In 1967, while working on her doctorate at New York University, she drove to La Guardia Airport for her first flying lesson. She said “No one at my house knew where I was – no one in the world. The flight instructor and I flew over the Hudson River and he showed me different maneuvers and – I was just talking about being in the air and then I was in the air. I had wanted this so long.”
She completed her flight training in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Her father lived long enough to see his daughter earn her pilots license before he died in 1970. She had her private pilot’s license in hand, but still dreamed of more. So, she soon completed the requirements to become a flight instructor. It is said that she was the first African American female flight instructor in the United States.
Ida realized that there were other kids just like her that were interested in flying. Children would gather around her after flights, following her on the way to her car wanting to know everything about the plane and what it was like to be in the air
Her love for flight and children merged when she founded the first Ida Van Smith Flight Club on Long Island, New York. The flight training club was for minority children to encourage their involvement in aviation and aerospace sciences. Training for the students was provided in an aircraft simulator funded by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and an operational Cessna 172. Soon, there were more than 20 clubs throughout the country, with members aged 13 to 19.
Her program was then expanded into public schools, and she started an introductory aviation course for adults at York College of the City University of New York. Volunteers from varying areas in aviation gave her classes tours of airplanes and airports. They also took her students flying and gave lectures and demonstrations appropriate to each age group. Children in the program, along with their parents, flew in small airplanes, seaplanes and helicopters. They visited aerospace museums and FAA installations. Students in the program learned the controls, functions of the instruments and what makes a plane fly by sitting in Smith’s own Cessna 172 cockpit.
In the beginning, she used personal funds to establish her flight clubs. Later, the clubs found funding from corporate and private donations and volunteer efforts. In 1978-79, the FAA funded her program in 3 high schools in New York and New Jersey. The FAA later adopted these programs.
Over the years, more than 6,000 young people were involved in the flight clubs. Many became military, commercial or private pilots. The clubs also fostered the careers of many aeronautical engineers and air traffic controllers. During this same time, she produced and hosted a cable television show on aviation in New York.
Photographs and stories about Ida appeared in newspapers across the country. The November 1979 Ebony magazine called her the Pied Piper in the 4-page feature about her flight clubs. She was a guest several times on a New York cable show entitled “For You, Black Woman.” In one episode, she appeared alongside Maya Angelou and Cicely Tyson.
Ida Van Smith has been featured in exhibits at The Pentagon and the International Women’s Air and Space Museum in Cleveland, Ohio. She received numerous awards for her contributions to aviation and youth education. The highest honor was a when, in 1997, she became part of the exhibit “Women and Flight” at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.
Ida retired from teaching in 1977, and with her second husband, Benjamin Dunn moved back to her hometown of Lumberton. She remained active in her namesake clubs. She was a member of the Tuskegee Airman’s Black Wings, Negro Airman International and the Ninety-Nines, an International Organization of Women Pilots co-founded by Amelia Earhart.
In 1984, she became the first African American woman to be inducted into the International Forest of Friendship for her contributions to aviation. The Forest is a living, growing memorial to the world history of aviation and aerospace. After her induction, she sponsored the inductions of Bessie Coleman and Janet Harmon Bragg.
In May 2013, just 7 months before the centennial of the Wright Brothers’ flight, Ida passed away in Lumberton, earning her final wings near the place where she first saw an airplane.
These three lovers of flight ignited the dreams of thousands. They should always hold a place of honor, not only in the hearts of all North Carolinians, but all Americans.