Bessie Coleman

While working as a manicurist in a Chicago barber shop in the early 1900s, Bessie Coleman listened with rapt excitement as returning World War I pilots spun tales of adventure and danger from missions during the war.

She yearned of being a pilot and serving her country, but flights schools accepted men only, or more specifically, only white men.

Undeterred, Coleman took a second job, saved her money, learned French and traveled to France where she enrolled in and graduated from flight school in 1921, becoming the first African-American woman to earn an aviation pilot’s license and an international aviation license.

And she was only 29 years old at the time.

Coleman polished her piloting skills in France and in late 1921 returned to the United States, where she became an instant high-flying celebrity. Because commercial flight was still uncharted, “Queen Bess,” as she was known, barnstormed the country, performing daring aerial and parachuting stunts for large audiences.

Free from prejudices

“The air is the only place free from prejudices,” said Coleman, who was the first African-American woman in the United States to make a public flight. “I knew we had no aviator, neither men nor women, and I knew the race needed to be represented along this most important line, so I thought it my duty to risk my life to learn aviation.”

Often flying in unwanted or surplus U.S. military planes, Coleman’s first appearance at a U.S.  airshow was in 1922 at an event honoring the all-black 369th Infantry Regiment on Long Island in New York. Newspapers prior to the show dubbed Coleman as the “world’s greatest woman flier.”

Despite her popularity at air shows, Coleman dreamed of opening an aviation school to train African-American pilots. To help finance the school, she accepted a role in a movie, but later turned it down when told she would have to walk with a cane and wear tattered clothes.

“[Her] walking off the movie set was a statement of principle,” author Doris Rich wrote in Queen Bess, Aviator Daredevil. “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 blacks.”

While performing, Coleman suffered numerous injuries from crashes, including three broken ribs and a broken leg. Still, she continued to perform for throngs of cheering fans.

"Because of Bessie Coleman, we have overcome that which was worse than racial barriers. We have overcome the barriers within ourselves and dared to dream," wrote Lt. William J. Powell in the book Black Wings.

In April of 1926, Coleman died when the plane she was a passenger in encountered mechanical problems at 2,000 feet and took a deadly nosedive in Jacksonville, Fla. Coleman either jumped from or was thrown from the plane and died upon impact. She was 34.