American Airlines Flight 5342 plane crashed into the Potomac River, killing 64 people, including a civil rights attorney Kiah Duggins who grew up in Wichita
Thirty-year-old Kiah Duggins was traveling home to Washington, D.C., where she was employed as a Civil Rights Corps lawyer. She had travelled to Wichita to accompany her mother when she underwent surgery.
Duggins was aboard the airplane, according to confirmation from her family on Thursday.
Kiah Duggins, 30, was on her way home to Washington, D.C., where she worked as an attorney for the Civil Rights Corps and had been in Wichita to be with her mother during a surgical procedure.
Who is attorney and professor Kiah Duggins as lawyer dies in American Airlines Flight 5342 Washington DC plane crash, bio, age, family, parents and education
Kiah Duggins was a civil rights attorney who worked with a legal group in D.C. called Civil Rights Corps and was also a well-known and active member of the Wichita community.
She graduated from Wichita East High School, Wichita State University as a Clay Barton Scholar and Harvard Law School and not only was she an attorney, but she was also set to be a professor at Howard University School of Law in the fall.
Kiah Duggins was born in Wichita. Kiah Duggins attended Wichita East High School, where he completed the International Baccalaureate program, before enrolling at Wichita State University as a Clay Barton Scholar.
She later graduated from Harvard Law School, where she was the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau’s president.
Duggins was Miss Butler County 2015, Delta Mu’s Miss Black and Gold 2013, and a top 10 finalist for Miss Kansas. At WSU, she was a member of the Student Government Association, co-founder of the WSU Shocker Food Locker and co-founder of the Wichita State Inspire outreach initiative.
Maurice and Gwen Duggins were her parents. Gwen is a retired teacher, and Maurice Duggins is a family practice physician in Wichita.
Maurice Duggins said, “We are coming to terms with the grief associated with the loss of our beautiful and accomplished firstborn. Please respect our family’s privacy at this time.”
Duggins loved God and her family. And that’s what provided some solace to her loved ones during Thursday’s prayer service at Tabernacle Bible.
R.I.P to this Black American civil rights attorney Kiah Duggins who passed away last night in the plane crash in DC.
“What brought me to this work is personal. I’m a descendent of enslaved people who have been exploited economically and criminally for hundreds of years.”
She… pic.twitter.com/E8Ljrj5VHR
— Lou facts (@LoufactsIGB) January 31, 2025
Kiah Duggins career
Kiah Duggins interned in the White House as part of former First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let Girls Learn” campaign while she was attending Wichita State, founded the college readiness program The Princess Project and was president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau.
In 2014, she was crowned Miss Butler County and participated in scholarship pageants. At the Miss Kansas pageant, she placed among the top ten finalists.
She was an advocate for diversity and inclusion and co-founded the Wichita State Inspire outreach program and the Shocker Food Locker campus food pantry.
Duggins fulfilled her dream of becoming a civil rights lawyer. She worked with the ACLU of Northern California to confront police misbehavior and concentrated on reforming the police and jail system. She also contested bail policies and policing in Tennessee, Texas, and Washington, D.C.
She pushed for the EPA to take action in 2023 regarding tainted groundwater in Wichita’s minority areas.
“She was a child of God, and so I just believe that although she is absent from the body, she is now present with the Lord,” Montgomery said.
RIP ❤️ Professor Kiah Duggins was among those lost in the mid-air plane collision at Reagan National Airport. Professor Duggins was set to begin a new chapter as a professor at Howard University School of Law this fall. May her memory be a blessing. pic.twitter.com/MvgUYvgMrC
— Ana Lucia Araujo, PhD (@araujohistorian) January 31, 2025