Bessie Coleman,Bessie Coleman’s 125th Birthday

Bessie Coleman,Bessie Coleman’s 125th Birthday

Bessie Coleman,Bessie Coleman’s 125th Birthday

Bessie Coleman

Bessie Coleman’s 125th Birthday

Bessie Coleman (January 26, 1892 – April 30, 1926) was an American civil aviator. She was the first female pilot of African American descent and was also the first woman of Native American descent to hold a pilot license. She is also the first person of African American and Native American descent to hold an international pilot license.

Coleman was born on January 26, 1892, in Atlanta, Texas, the tenth of thirteen children to sharecroppers George, who was part Cherokee, and Susan Coleman, who was African-American.

When Coleman was two years old, her family moved to Waxahachie, Texas, where she lived until age 23. Coleman began attending school in Waxahachie at age six and had to walk four miles each day to her segregated, one-room school where she loved to read and established herself as an outstanding math student. She completed all eight grades of her one-room school. Every year, Coleman's routine of school, chores, and church was interrupted by the cotton harvest. In 1901, Coleman's life took a dramatic turn: George Coleman left his family. 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 the father. At age 12, Bessie was accepted into the Missionary Baptist Church. When she turned eighteen, she took her savings and enrolled in the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University (now called Langston University) in Langston, Oklahoma. She completed one term before her money ran out, and she returned home.

In 1916 at the age of 23, she moved to Chicago, Illinois, where she lived with her brothers. In Chicago, she worked as a manicurist at the White Sox Barber Shop where she heard stories from pilots returning home from World War I about flying during the war. She took a second job at a chili parlor to procure money faster to become a pilot. American flight schools admitted neither women nor blacks, and no black U.S. aviator would train her. Robert S. Abbott, founder and publisher of the Chicago Defender, encouraged her to study abroad.[8] Coleman received financial backing from banker Jesse Binga and the Defender.

Bessie Coleman didn’t just chase her dreams – she soared after them.

Born in Texas to a family of 13 children, Coleman walked four miles each day to her segregated, one-room school. She was a proficient reader and excelled in math, and managed to balance her studies while helping her parents harvest cotton. Even from an early age, she had her sights set on something big.

At age 23, Coleman moved to Chicago where she worked two jobs in an effort to save enough money to enroll in aviation school. After working for five years, she moved to Paris to study, as no school in America would admit her due to her race and gender. Just a year later, Coleman became the first female pilot of African-American and Native American descent, and the first to earn an international aviation license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.

In order to earn a living, Coleman made a plan to become a stunt pilot and perform for paying audiences. However, she was again denied enrollment in a stunt training program in the US, and in 1922, traveled to Europe where she completed her training in France and Germany.

Returning to the US, Coleman excelled at exhibition flying, performing complex stunts in flight for packed audiences. It was during this time that she acquired the nickname “Queen Bessie.” She was an adept, daring, and beloved pilot, until her untimely death at the age of 34.

Although Coleman didn’t live to fulfill her ultimate dream of starting an aviation school to train people of color, she inspired a generation. As Lieutenant William J. Powell writes, "Because of Bessie Coleman, we have overcome that which was worse than racial barriers. We have overcome the barriers within ourselves and dared to dream.”

Today’s Doodle honors Coleman on what would be her 125th birthday.