Cynics Unlimited

It’s black history month so why not share some (instead of arguing about who should impart some, when, and for what cost)? This knowledge comes free, culled from newspapers and the internet, for all to use.

Our first topic is Bessie Coleman, the first licensed black pilot in America. As a direct descendant of Ms. Coleman, I am especially proud of her accomplishments and am pleased to see her fighting spirit pass through the generations.

Life

Elizabeth ‘Bessie’ Coleman (January 26, 1892 – April 30, 1926), popularly known as “Queen Bess,” was the first African American woman to become an airplane pilot, and the first American woman to hold an international pilot license.
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In 1915, at the age of twenty-three, Coleman moved to Chicago, Illinois, where she lived with her brothers and where she worked at the White Sox Barber Shop as a manicurist. There she heard tales of the world from pilots who were returning home from World War …
At the barbershop, Coleman met many influential men from the black community, including Robert S. Abbott, founder and publisher of the Chicago Defender, and Jesse Binga, a real estate promoter. Coleman received financial backing from Binga, and from the Chicago Defender, who capitalized on her flamboyant personality and her beauty to promote his newspaper, and to promote her cause. 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 Abbott encouraged her to study abroad.
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Coleman took 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 Bessie Coleman became the first African-American woman to earn an aviation pilot’s license in the world — and the first African-American woman to earn an international aviation license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.
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Coleman made her first appearance in an American air show on September 3, 1922, at an event honoring veterans of the all-black 369th American Expeditionary Force of World War I.
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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 Midway Airport).
-Wikipedia Entry: “Bessie Coleman”

Pre-Mature Death

At the end of April in 1926, Bessie’s Jenny arrived in Jacksonville. On the evening of April 30th, she and her mechanic took the plane up for a test flight. Once aloft, the plane malfunctioned and the mechanic, who was piloting the plane from the front seat, lost control of the plane. Bessie fell from the open cockpit several hundred feet to her death.
Five thousand mourners attended a memorial service for Bessie before her body traveled by train from Orlando to Chicago. An estimated ten thousand people filed past Bessie’s coffin to pay their last respects. Thousands more attended the funeral of that little girl from Texas who dreamt of a better life as she picked cotton at the dawn of the 20th century.
-BessieColeman.com – “Universal Legacy”

Legacy

In 1929, Lt. William J. Powell founded the Bessie Coleman Aero Club, the aviation school she’d longed to establish, in Los Angeles. In 1931, the Challenger Pilots’ Association of Chicago did their first annual flyover above Lincoln Cemetery, in honor of her. In 1934, Powell dedicated his book Black Wings to her memory. And in 1977, women pilots in the Chicago region founded the Bessie Coleman Aviators Club.
In 1990, a road near Chicago’s O’Hare Airport was re-named Bessie Coleman Drive, and two years later, Chicago declared May 2, 1992, Bessie Coleman Day. In 1995, the U.S. Postal Department issued the Bessie Coleman stamp. And finally, in 2000, Bessie Coleman was inducted into the Texas Aviation Hall of Fame.
-Lakewood Public Library - “Bessie Coleman Biography”

News Articles

Below are some scans of news articles collected by my family over the past couple of decades. The articles vary in quality – sometimes zooming in at 150% helps. Click on pictures to enlarge

“Woman Was First Black Pilot”
Chicago Defender. July 14, 1979

Hunt, Rufus. “First Black Pilot was a Woman”.
The Baltimore Afro-American. August 8, 1991.

“Miss Bessie may Fly in Norfolk, Va.”
(unknown). August 18, 1922.

“Bessie Coleman, Aviatrix, Killed” (front page)
Chicago Defender. May 6, 1926.