Elizabeth (Bessie) Coleman (1893-1926), Stunt Pilot, First American of any gender or ethnicity to earn an international aviation license
Elizabeth (Bessie) Coleman was called "Queen Bess" as she performed daring stunt maneuvers in the sky.
Born in Atlanta, Texas, in 1893, Elizabeth (Bessie) Coleman was the 10th of 13 children. Her parents, George (Cherokee heritage) and Susan Coleman (African-American heritage) were sharecroppers. When she was two years old, the family moved to Waxahachie, Texas, and lived there until Bessie was 23 years old.
Her father left Texas where he found the racial climate unbearable for people of color and returned to Oklahoma-known then as Indian Country-where he hoped to find better opportunities. Bessie's mother and the children stayed behind.
When Bessie was 23, she moved to Chicago and lived with her brothers while she worked as a manicurist. In Chicago she first heard pilots who had returned from World War I speak about flying airplanes.
The vision enthralled her, but because of her race and gender, she couldn't find a flying school that would accept her. When Chicago Defender newspaper editor, Robert S. Abbott, heard about her desire to pilot an airplane, he connected her with the French Flying School.
Bessie seized the opportunity. She enrolled in a French course at the Berlitz School in Chicago to learn the language, and on November 20, 1920, she sailed for France. On June 15, 1921, she became the first American of any gender or ethnicity to earn an international aviation license from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale.
Bessie Coleman became quite a media sensation and was admired by so many across racial lines that she was dubbed "Queen Bess" as she performed daring stunt maneuvers and advertised for the Firestone Rubber Company.
Coleman hoped all the publicity and contacts would help her to open her own flying school. But Bessie Coleman's dream would go unrealized. On April 30, 1926, while she and her mechanic, William D. Willis, took her airplane for a test run before a Memorial Day exhibition, the plane developed engine problems and went into a nosedive. Not wearing a seatbelt, Bessie was ejected from the airplane. Willis, still inside, also died on impact.
In 1995, nearly 70 years after her untimely death, a commemorative stamp was commissioned to honor Bessie Coleman's contribution to aviation.
KB Schaller(Cherokee/Seminole heritage)is a journalist, novelist, and illustrator. A version of this article appears in her biographical collection, 100+ Native American Women Who Changed the World, Winner, 2014 International Book Award for Women's Issues. Her books are available through Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million and other bookstores. Email: soaring-eagles@msn.com;
