By Stephanie Perez, Advertising Manager & Staff Writer
Nicknamed “Brave Bessie,” “Queen Bess,” and “The Only Race Aviatrix in the World,” Bess Coleman makes her mark in history as the first African American, and the first Native American, woman pilot.
Born on Jan. 26, 1892, in Atlanta, Ga., Coleman grew up in a cruel world filled with discrimination and hate towards those of dark skin color. Raised in a household of 12 brothers and sisters, her mother was an African American and her father was a sharecropper of mixed Native American and African American descent. When she turned 23, she moved to Chicago to live with her brothers and went to the Burnham School of Beauty Culture in 1915 and became a manicurist at a local barbershop. Her brothers served in the military and brought back stories about French women and how they were superior to African American women because they could fly. This sparked her interest in becoming a pilot.
A pilot license was something that really only the white and wealthy had the privilege of possessing. Coleman applied to many flight schools in hopes of getting in, but no school would take her because she was both African American and a woman. That is when she decided to start learning French to obtain her license in France.
She received her international pilot’s license on June 15, 1921, from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. In 1922, she performed the first public flight by an African American woman. Over the next five years, Coleman performed at countless air shows. She took her last flight on April 30, 1926, in Jacksonville, Fla. when in mid air she had difficulties when a wrench got caught in the controls. Sadly, she fell to her death.
Coleman continues to inspire all those who were denied their dreams with her sense of adventure, hard work, and determination.