Bessie Coleman

Bessie Coleman (1892-1926)

Bessie "Queen Bess" Coleman (January 26, 1892 – April 30, 1926),was a famous African American aviator. She became well known not only as a skilled aviator but also she was the first African American woman in history to receive a a plilot's license. "Brave Bessie" or "Queen Bess," as she became known, was challenged by racial and gender discrimination in early twentieth century America. She always was fighting for equal rights for women and minorities.

Early Life

Coleman was born in Atlanta, Texas, she was the tenth of thirteen children. Her father, George Coleman, was three-quarter Choctaw Indian. Her parents were sharecroppers. Her early childhood was a happy one, she played in the front yard or on the porch with her siblings. The Coleman family was religious and work stopped on Sunday mornings and afternoons to attend the local church.

As the other children began to age and find work in the fields, Coleman assumed responsibilities around the house. She looked after her sisters, helped her mother, Susan Coleman, work in her garden, and performed many of the everyday chores of running the house.

Colman was a highly motivated individual. Despite working long hours, she still found time to educate herself by borrowing books from a traveling library. She read the Bible every night often reading aloud to her family. Coleman began school at the age of six and had to walk four miles each day to her all-black, one-room school. Despite sometimes lacking such materials as chalk and pencils she was an excellent student. She loved to read and established herself as an outstanding math student. Coleman completed all eight grades of her one-room school.

Coleman’s routine of school, chores, and church was interrupted by the cotton harvest. Each man, woman, and child was needed to pick the cotton. It was hard, tiresome work that had to be done every year.

In 1901, her life took a dramatic turn. George Coleman left his family. He had become fed up with the racial barriers that existed in Texas. He returned to Oklahoma, or Indian Territory as it was then called, to find better opportunities, but Susan and the children did not go with him.

At the age of twelve Coleman was accepted into the Missionary Baptist Church. When she turned eighteen she took all of her savings and enrolled in the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University in Langston, Oklahoma. With only one term completed she ran out of money and was forced to return home. In 1915, at the age of twenty-three, she went to live with her brothers in Chicago. She attended beauty school and then started working as a manicurist in a local barbershop.

Chicago

She worked at a supermarket as well as the barber shop during these years in Chicago. There she heard tales of the war from pilots who were returning home from World War I. They told stories about flying in the war and Coleman started to fantasize about being a pilot. Her brother used to tease her by commenting that French women were better than African-American women because French women were pilots already. At the barbershop, Coleman met many influential men from the black community, including Robert S. Abbott, founder and publisher of the Chicago Defender, and Jesse Binga, a real estate promoter. Coleman received financial backing from Binga, and from the Chicago Defender, who capitalized on her flamboyant personality and her beauty to promote his newspaper, and to promote her cause.

France

Coleman took French language class at the Berlitz school in Chicago, and then traveled to Paris on November 20, 1920. She could not gain admission to American flight schools because she was black and a woman. Coleman attended the well-known Caudron Brothers' School of Aviation in Le Crotoy, France. There she learned to fly using French Nieuport airplanes. On June 15, 1921, Coleman obtained her pilot's license from Federation Aeronautique Internationale after only seven months. She was the first black woman in the world to earn an aviator's license. After some additional training in Paris, Coleman returned to the United States in September 1921.

Airshows

In September of 1921, she became a media sensation when she returned to the United States. Invited to important events and often interviewed by newspapers, she was admired by both blacks and whites. In 1922, she participated at her first airshow, in Long Island. Coleman continued to perform in airshows, and survived several crashes. In Los Angeles, California, she broke a leg and three ribs when her plane stalled and crashed on February 22, 1922. As her notoriety grew, she was invited to make.

Death

On April 30, 1926, Coleman had recently purchased a plane in Dallas and it had just been flown to Jacksonville in preparation for an airshow. Her friends and family did not consider the aircraft safe and implored her not to fly it. Her mechanic and publicity agent, William Wills, was flying the plane with Coleman in the other seat. Coleman did not put on her seatbelt because she was planning a parachute jump for the next day and wanted to look over the cockpit to examine the terrain. About twelve minutes into the flight the plane did not pull out of a planned nosedive; instead it accelerated into a tailspin. Bessie Coleman was thrown from the plane at five hundred feet and died instantly when she hit the ground. William Wills was unable to gain control of the plane and it plummeted to the ground. Wills died upon impact and the plane burst into flames. Despite the badly burned plane, an investigation revealed that the crash was possibly due to a wrench that was lodged in the control gears. Bessie Coleman is buried in Chicago's Lincoln Cemetery.

Funeral and legacy

Her funeral was attended by ten thousand mourners. Many of them, including Ida B. Wells, were prominent members of Black society. As the first African American woman pilot, she has been honored in several ways since her death: in 1931, a group of Black male pilots performed the first yearly fly-by over Coleman's grave, in 1977, a group of African American women pilots established the Bessie Coleman Aviators Club and in 1995, she was honored with her image on a postage stamp by the United States Postal Service. The international terminal of O'Hare Airport in Chicago is located on Bessie Coleman Drive, as is the main street of the FAA Technical Center in Atlantic City.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Brooks-Pazmany, Kathleen. United States Women in Aviation, 1919-1929. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. ISBN 0874743788
Freydberg, Elizabeth Hadley. Bessie Coleman: The Brownskin Lady Bird. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1994. ISBN 0815314612
Hardesty, Von and Pisano, Dominick. Black Wings: The American Black in Aviation. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1984.
Hart, Philip S. Flying Free: America's First Black Aviators. Minneapolis, Minn.: Lerner Publication Company, 1992. ISBN 0822515989
Moolman, Valerie. Women Aloft. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1981. ISBN 0809432889
Rich, Doris L. Queen Bess: Daredevil Aviator. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993. ISBN 1560982659

External Links

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