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Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman was an American civilian aviator. She was the first African-American female pilot in history and the first person of African-American descent to obtain an international pilot's license.
Coleman was born on January 26, 1892, in Atlanta, Texas, the tenth of thirteen children of farmers George and Susan Coleman. When Bessie was only two years old, the family moved to Waxahachie to supplement her income by picking cotton and doing housework. Coleman started school at age six, a one-room boarding school for African-American students; she had to walk more than four miles each day to get there. Although she sometimes lacked basic school supplies, such as chalk and pencils, Coleman was an excellent student. She loved to read and excelled in mathematics, which led her to graduate after completing eight years of schooling. Each year, her routine of attending school, church, and helping with household chores was interrupted by the cotton harvest. In 1901, Coleman's life took a dramatic turn: George Coleman, who was of Cherokee descent, decided to emigrate to Indian territory in Oklahoma, to escape both the misery and racial violence they suffered in Texas, but Susan and the children did not accompany him.
At the age of twelve, Coleman was accepted into the Missionary Baptist Church. At eighteen, she saved up her savings and enrolled at the Colored Agricultural and Normal University (now Langston University) in Langston, Oklahoma. She completed only one year of school before her money ran out and she had to return home. Knowing that she would have no future in her hometown, Coleman moved with two of her brothers to Chicago, where she began looking for work.
In 1915, at the age of twenty-three, Coleman moved with her brothers to Chicago, Illinois, where she worked as a manicurist at the White Sox Hair Salon. There, she spent her time listening to pilots who had returned from World War I recount their adventures around the world during the war. Over time, Coleman began to fantasize about becoming a pilot. Her brother John, who had served in Europe during the Great War, used to tease her about the idea that French women were better than African-American women because the former were already pilots; she, on the other hand, could not be admitted to flight schools in the United States because she was black and female. Not even an African-American American aviator could train her. However, Robert S. Abbott, founder and editor of the Chicago Defender, encouraged her to study abroad. Coleman received helpColeman received French lessons at the Berlitz School in Chicago, and on November 20, 1920, she set off for Paris. In France, she learned to fly, at the Caudron School in Le Crotoy, in a Nieuport 82 biplane, with "a control system consisting of a vertical bar the thickness of a baseball bat in front of the pilot and a rudder bar under the aviator's feet." On June 15, 1921, Coleman became not only the first African-American woman to obtain an international aviation license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, but also the first African-American in the world to obtain an airline pilot's license. Determined to improve her skills, Coleman spent the next two months receiving lessons from a French pilot near Paris, and in September she set off for New York.
Coleman quickly realized that to make a living as a civilian pilot (the era of commercial flight would not arrive for at least ten years) he would have to devote himself to air shows for entertainment and performing for an audience. However, to succeed in such a competitive field, he needed advanced classes and a larger repertoire. After returning to Chicago, he found that no one was willing to teach him, so on February 28, 1922, he set off for Europe again. He spent the next three months in France where he took advanced aviation courses with Nieuport himself, and then visited the Netherlands to meet Anthony Fokker, one of the world's most distinguished aircraft designers, and to tour his factories. He also traveled to Germany, where he visited the Fokker Corporation and received additional training from one of the company's leading pilots. He returned to the United States with the confidence and enthusiasm he needed to launch his career in exhibition flying.
In September 1922, she became a media sensation when she returned to her country. "Queen Bess," as she was known, was very popular for the next five years. Invited to important events and frequently interviewed by newspapers, she was admired by both African Americans and whites. The planes she flew were Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplanes and other warplanes left over from World War I. On February 22, 1922, in Los Angeles, California, she broke a leg and three ribs when her plane jammed and crashed. She made her first appearance at a flying display in the United States on September 3 of that year, at an event organized to honor veterans of the all-African-American 369th Infantry Regiment, held on Long Island, near New York City, and sponsored by her friend Abbott and the editors of the Chicago Defender newspaper. The show, billed as "the world's greatest female aviator," featured aerial displays by eight other American pilots, and a parachute jump by Hubert Julian. Six weeks later, she returned to Chicago to perform a series of daring maneuvers, including figure skating, flips, and low-flying stunts, before an enthusiastic and large audience at Checkerboard Aerodrome (now Midway International Airport).
Despite her accomplishments, the thrill of flying displays and the admiration of the public were only part of Coleman's dream. She never forgot a promise she had made to herself in childhood, to "be someone important." As a professional aviator, Coleman was widely criticized in the press for her opportunistic nature and the extravagant style she displayed in her air shows. However, she quickly gained a reputation as a skilled and daring pilot who would stop at nothing to complete a dangerous maneuver.
Through her media contacts, she was offered a role in a feature film called Shadow and Sunshine, which was to be financed by the African American Seminole Film Producing Company. She happily accepted, hoping that the publicity would help her advance her career and provide her with the money she needed to establish her own flying school. However, upon discovering that in the film's first scene she was to appear dressed in tattered clothes, with a cane and a backpack over her shoulders, she refused to continue. According to Doris Rich, "Bessie's decision to leave the film was clearly a matter of principle. Although she was opportunistic about her career, she was never opportunistic about her race. She had no intention of perpetuating the derogatory image that most whites had of African Americans."
Coleman would not live to fulfill her greatest dream, which was to establish a school for young African-American aviators, but her achievements as a pioneer inspired a generation of African-American men and women. According to Lieutenant William J. Powell, in his 1934 book Black Wings, "Thanks to Bessie Coleman we have invaded what was worse than racial barriers. We have invaded the barriers that existed within ourselves and dared to dream." Powell fought in a segregated unit during World War I, and promoted the cause of African-American aviation tirelessly, in her book, her newspapers, and in the Bessie Coleman Flying Club, which she founded in 1929.
On April 30, 1926, Coleman, age thirty-four, was in Jacksonville, Florida. He had recently purchased a Curtiss JN-4 (Jenny) in Dallas, Texas, and had brought it to Jacksonville to prepare for an air show; his friends and family did not consider the plane safe and had begged him not to fly it. His mechanic and publicity agent, William Willis, was traveling in the plane with Coleman as co-pilot. Coleman did not fasten his seat belt because he planned to parachute the next day and wanted to take a full look around the cockpit to examine the terrain. Approximately ten minutes after takeoff, the plane did not respond as expected and lurched, causing Coleman to be thrown out of the aircraft one hundred and fifty yards, hit the ground, and died instantly. William Wills lost control of the aircraft and also died after crashing into the ground, as the plane caught fire. Although the wreckage was badly burned, it was later discovered that a wrench used to repair the engine had slipped into the gearbox and jammed it.
