January 26 – Happy Birthday, Bessie Coleman

nPostednon January 26, 2015

Indon’t know if you had met Bessie Coleman on the day of her birth,nJanuary 26, 1892, if you could’ve guessed that one day she would benthe subject of biographies and a Wikipedia article.

nShenwas born in Atlanta, Texas, the tenth child of African Americannsharecroppers. (They had three more kids after Bessie.) Sharecroppersnare people who do not own land. They farm someone else’s land and innreturn get some share of the crops they harvest (hence the termnsharecropper). It isn’t easy to go from being a sharecroppernto being a landowner!

nAnd,ntrust me, it wasn’t easy to go from being a sharecroppers’ daughternto being a woman accomplished enough to have an entry innWikipedia!

Coleman went to a segregated one-room school fornall eight available grades and was an outstanding student. Later, shenwas only able to afford one term at the Oklahoma Colored Agriculturalnand Normal University. She moved to Chicago and got a job as anmanicurist.

nButnshe didn’t want to be manicurist. She wanted to be a pilot. At thatntime, in the early 1900s, black people were not allowed in flightnschools in the U.S. Also, women were not allowed in flight schools innthe U.S. Two strikes against her…but they didn’t stop her.

nColemannstudied French, and then she traveled to Paris on November 20, 1920.nThere she learned to fly a biplane with a steering system thatnconsisted of a vertical stick in front of the pilot and a rudder barnunder the pilot’s feet.

Herndetermination and I-will-go-anywhere-to-meet-my-goal attitude paidnoff. In 1921 Coleman became, not only the first woman of AfricannAmerican descent to earn an international pilot’s license from thenFederation Aeronautique Internationale, she became the American –nman or woman, black or white – to do so! She was also the firstnwoman of African American descent to earn any sort of pilot’snlicense. n

nColemannwasn’t content with just doing the minimum to get her license. Afterngetting her license, she continued to polish her skills by takingnlessons from a French ace pilot.

nWhennColeman returned to the U.S., late in 1921, she was a mediansensation.

Still,nthere was no way to make money as a commercial pilot at the time.nPilots in the U.S. made their money by “barnstorming” and doingnstunt flying in front of paid audiences. So Coleman needed to learnnstunt flying.

nNobodynin the U.S. was willing to teach her, so Coleman returned to Francenfor more training. She even studied flight with some then-bigwigs innairplane design and aviation in the Netherlands and Germany. Shenreturned to the U.S. well trained, ready to take on the world ofnexhibition flying.

nQueennBess was Coleman’s “stage name,” and she was very popular withnaudiences. People wrote newspaper articles about her, and she wasninvited to important events. She was sometimes billed as the world’sngreatest woman flier. She did figure eights, loops, and near-groundndips for large and enthusiastic crowds of all races.

nStuntnflying isn’t all cheering crowds and success, of course. OncenColeman’s plane stalled and crashed, and she broke a leg and threenribs. And unfortunately, she died in a plane crash when she was justn34 years old.