On the evening of Jan. 29, 30-year-old civil rights attorney Kiah Duggins boarded an American Airlines flight back to Washington, D.C., after visiting her hometown of Wichita, Kansas. Just hours earlier, she had been by her mother’s side as she recovered from major surgery.
Tragically, Duggins never made it home.
Her flight collided mid-air with a Black Hawk helicopter en route to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, sending both aircraft plunging into the Potomac River. All 67 people on board were killed, marking the deadliest U.S. airline crash since 2001.
A Daughter’s Final Visit
Duggins had returned to Wichita after her mother, Gwen, underwent a double mastectomy following a second breast cancer diagnosis. Despite her demanding career, Duggins insisted on being present.
“She came to Wichita, really, to support me,” Gwen recalled. Hours after being discharged from the hospital, she watched her daughter head to the airport, unaware it would be the last time she saw her alive.
The family, tightly bonded despite living across the country, kept a daily group chat. Kiah’s absence has left what Gwen describes as “an unfillable hole” in their lives.
A Life of Service and Purpose
Even as a child, Duggins had a reputation for defending others. Inspired by Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, she dreamed of working for the First Lady one day. She eventually achieved that goal, interning for the White House’s Let Girls Learn initiative.
Former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama later sent condolences to her family, writing: “Kiah went above and beyond on every task. At every Let Girls Learn meeting, she was the first to show up and the last to leave.”
Duggins’ passion for helping others extended beyond government service. While still in college, she founded Kiah’s Princess Project, a nonprofit that equips underrepresented young women with tools and mentorship to pursue higher education. The initiative grew from her own experience of being told as a child that “Black princesses didn’t exist.”
Her advocacy continued at Harvard Law School, where she worked to honor Belinda Sutton, an enslaved woman tied to the school’s founding family, by pushing to rename a lounge space “Belinda Hall.”
After law school, she joined the nonprofit Civil Rights Corps, litigating cases across the country that challenged injustices in the legal system.
A Future Cut Short
This fall, Duggins was preparing to step into a new role as an assistant law professor at Howard University, a historically Black institution in Washington, D.C. Family members say the opportunity reflected her commitment to mentorship and her vision of expanding access to justice through education.
“She was a big picture person,” Gwen said. “She had a vision for how civil rights could truly change this country.”
Carrying the Light Forward
At church, Gwen chose “light” as her spiritual focus for the year — a choice that felt providential when she later read the Obamas’ letter, which echoed the same theme.
“Scripture tells us, ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it,’” the Obamas wrote. “In the days ahead, we know Kiah’s light will continue to shine – giving us strength and showing the way.”
For Gwen, her daughter’s legacy now lives on through the projects she built, the cases she fought, and the young women she inspired.
As Kiah once said during her 2017 TEDx Talk: “We can help solve the world’s big problems by sharing our own little gifts.”
