Was first African-American pilot born here?

— Carter G. Woodson, who acquired a doctorate degree in history from Harvard University in 1912, is known as the father of Black History Month. Woodson would have been thrilled to know that in that same year, while he was accomplishing his own dreams of becoming a scholar, there was another young African-American man from Pennsylvania, Emory C. Malick, who was attempting a feat of his own: becoming a licensed pilot.

Today, one of his descendants is trying to prove he was, in fact, the first African-American to hold a pilot’s license.

Malick, born in 1881 and raised in Sunbury, acquired an early interest in aviation. The events of his flights were in newspapers of that time, but the background for his interests was shown in his hand-written letters that were in his estate and presented to the Snyder County Historical Society by his nephew, Warren F. Groce, of Selinsgrove.

Malick acquired a pilot’s license at Curtiss Aviation School in San Diego on March 20, 1912. After earning his license, Malick obtained, assembled and improved upon a Curtiss “pusher” bi-plane, which in August 1914 he flew over Selinsgrove to “the wonderment of all,” the Selinsgrove Times reported.

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