BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman (January 26, 1892 – April 30, 1926) was an American civil aviator. She was the first female pilot of African American descent
and the first person of African 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.
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 became 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 age 12, she was accepted into the Missionary Baptist
Church. When she turned eighteen, Coleman 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 returned home.
In 1915, at the age of 23, she moved to Chicago, Illinois,
where she lived with her brothers and she worked at the White Sox
Barber Shop as a manicurist, where she heard stories from pilots
returning home from World War I
about flying during the war. She could not gain admission to American
flight schools because she was black and a woman. No black U.S. aviator
would train her either. Robert S. Abbott, founder and publisher of the
Chicago Defender, encouraged her to study abroad. Coleman received financial backing from a banker named Jesse Binga
and the
Defender.
Coleman took a French language class at the Berlitz school in Chicago, and then traveled to Paris on November 20, 1920. 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,
and the first American of any gender or ethnicity to do so, but the
first African American woman to earn an aviation pilot's license.
Determined to polish her skills, Coleman spent the next two months
taking lessons from a French ace pilot near Paris, and in September
1921, sailed for New York. She became a media sensation when she
returned to the United States.
Coleman quickly realized that in order to make a living as a civilian
aviator—the age of commercial flight was still a decade or more in the
future—she would need to become a "barnstorming"
stunt flier, and perform for paying audiences. But to succeed in this
highly competitive arena, she would need advanced lessons and a more
extensive repertoire. Returning to Chicago, Coleman could find no one
willing to teach her, so in February 1922, she sailed again for Europe.
She spent the next two months in France completing an advanced course in
aviation, then left for the Netherlands to meet with Anthony Fokker, one of the world's most distinguished aircraft designers. She also traveled to Germany, where she visited the Fokker
Corporation and received additional training from one of the company's
chief pilots. She returned to the United States with the confidence and
enthusiasm she needed to launch her career in exhibition flying.
"Queen Bess," as she was known was a highly popular draw for the next
five years. Invited to important events and often interviewed by
newspapers, she was admired by both blacks and whites. She primarily
flew Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplanes and army surplus aircraft left over from the war. She made her first appearance in an American airshow on September 3, 1922, at an event honoring veterans of the all-black 369th Infantry Regiment of World War I. Held at Curtiss Field on Long Island near New York City and sponsored by her friend Abbott and the
Chicago Defender newspaper, the show billed Coleman as "the world's greatest woman flier"
and featured aerial displays by eight other American ace pilots, and a jump by black parachutist Hubert Julian.
Six weeks later she returned to Chicago to deliver a stunning
demonstration of daredevil maneuvers—including figure eights, loops, and
near-ground dips—to a large and enthusiastic crowd at the Checkerboard
Airdrome (now Chicago Midway Airport).
But the thrill of stunt flying and the admiration of cheering crowds
were only part of Coleman's dream. Coleman never lost sight of her
childhood vow to one day "amount to something." As a professional
aviator, Coleman would often be criticized by the press for her
opportunistic nature and the flamboyant style she brought to her
exhibition flying. However, she also quickly gained a reputation as a
skilled and daring pilot who would stop at nothing to complete a
difficult stunt. In Los Angeles, she broke a leg and three ribs when her
plane stalled and crashed on February 22, 1923.
Through her media contacts, she was offered a role in a feature-length film titled
Shadow and Sunshine,
to be financed by the African American Seminole Film Producing Company.
She gladly accepted, hoping the publicity would help to advance her
career and provide her with some of the money she needed to establish
her own flying school. But upon learning that the first scene in the
movie required her to appear in tattered clothes, with a walking stick
and a pack on her back, she refused to proceed.
"Clearly ...
[Bessie's] walking off the movie set was a statement of principle.
Opportunist though she was about her career, she was never an
opportunist about race. She had no intention of perpetuating the
derogatory image most whites had of most blacks", wrote Doris Rich.
Coleman would not live long enough to fulfill her dream of
establishing a school for young black aviators, but her pioneering
achievements served as an inspiration for a generation of African
American men and women. "Because of Bessie Coleman," wrote Lieutenant William J. Powell in
Black Wings
1934, dedicated to Coleman, "we have overcome that which was worse than
racial barriers. We have overcome the barriers within ourselves and
dared to dream".
Powell served in a segregated unit during World War I,
and tirelessly promoted the cause of black aviation through his book,
his journals, and the Bessie Coleman Aero Club, which he founded in
1929.
On April 30, 1926 Coleman was in Jacksonville. She had recently purchased a Curtiss JN-4 (Jenny) in Dallas
and had it 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 sill to examine the terrain. About
ten minutes into the flight, the 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. 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. Although the wreckage of the
plane was badly burned, it was later discovered that a wrench used to
service the engine had slid into the gearbox and jammed it.
She was 34 years old.
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