Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman
Born: January 26, 1862 Dead: April 30, 1926
Bessie Coleman was the tenth child of thirteen born to sharecroppers George and Susan Coleman. When she was 9yrs old her father left her family and moved to Oklahoma for better opportunities which unlike Texas was not ruled by racial barriers. When Bessie turned eighteen she took the money she saved and attended Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University (which was later called Langston University) in Langston, Oklahoma. She completed only one term however before returning home because she ran out of funds.
In 1915, she moved to Chicago, Illinois with her brother. There she worked at the White Sox Barber Shop as a manicurist. she heard all types of stories there from returning home from World War I about flying during the war. Unfortunately for Bessie she couldn't attend the American flight schools because she was black as well as a woman and no black U.S. aviator would train her. Robert S. Abbott, founder and publisher of the "Chicago Defender" had faith in Bessie and encouraged her to study abroad. Coleman received financial backing from a banker named Jesse Binga and the Defender.
Coleman went the Berlitz school were she took a French language class in Chicago, and then traveled to Paris on November 20, 1920. There Coleman learned to fly in a Nieuport Type 82 biplane, with "a steering system that consisted of a vertical stick the thickness of a baseball bat in front of the pilot and a rudder bar under the pilot's feet." On June 15, 1921, Coleman became not only the first African-American woman to earn an international aviation license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, but the first African American woman in the world to earn an aviation pilot's license. In September 1921, sailed in sights of New York. She became a media sensation upon returning to the United States.
Realizing rather quickly that in order to make a living in this profession she would need to become a "barnstorming" stunt flier, and perform for paying audiences. Soon she was known as "Queen Bess," and was a highly requested pick for the next five years. Coleman was invited to important events and often interviewed by newspapers, she was admired by both blacks and whites. She had her first American appearance on September 3, 1922, at an event honoring veterans of the all-black 369th Infantry Regiment of World War I. She was raved in the papers for her performance as "the world's greatest woman flier." Coleman also had a reputation as not only a skilled but daring pilot who would stop at nothing to complete a difficult stunt. She proved that in Los Angeles were she broke a leg and three ribs when her plane stalled and crashed on February 22, 1923. Her funeral was held on May 2, 1926 and had 5,000 mourners in attendance.
Bessie Coleman died at the young age of 34 years old during an airshow when her plane did not pull out of a dive; instead it spun. Coleman was thrown from the plane at 2,000 ft. (610 m) and died instantly when she hit the ground. Though she never got the chance to fulfill her dream of establishing a school for young black aviators, her pioneering achievements served as an inspiration for generations of African American men and women to come. In 1927, Bessie Coleman Aero Clubs sprang up throughout the country. On Labor Day during the year 1931, these clubs sponsored the first all-African American Air Show attracting approximately 15,000 spectators. In the same year, a group of African American pilots established an annual flyover of Coleman's grave in Lincoln Cemetery in Chicago. In 1989, First Flight Society inducted Coleman into their shrine which honors individuals as well as groups that have achieved significant "firsts" in aviation's development. In 1995, she was honored with her image on a U.S. postage stamp, and was inducted into the Women in Aviation Hall of Fame as well as The Texas Aviation Hall of Fame in 2000. In 1999 she was designated a Women's History Month Honoree by the National Women's History Project.
The 90th anniversary of her first flight, July 23, 2011, was commemorated by a reading of parts of her biographies and an exhibition of model aircraft at Miller Field ( located in Staten Island, New York), a former United States Air Force facility.
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