Bessie Coleman (January 26, 1892 – April 30, 1926) was an early American civil aviator. She was the first African-American woman and first Native American to hold a pilot license. She earned her license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale on June 15, 1921, and was the first Black person to earn an international pilot’s license.

Born to a family of sharecroppers in Texas, Coleman worked in the cotton fields at a young age while also studying in a small, one-room segregated school, which she walked four miles each day to attend. She attended one term of college at Langston University.

At the age of 23, Coleman moved to Chicago, Illinois, where she lived with her brothers. In Chicago, she worked as a manicurist at the White Sox Barber Shop. There she heard stories of flying during wartime from pilots returning home from World War I. Coleman developed an early interest in flying, but African Americans, Native Americans, and women had no flight training opportunities in the United States, so she saved and obtained sponsorships to go to France for flight school.

She then became a high-profile pilot in notoriously dangerous air shows in the United States. She was popularly known as Queen Bess and Brave Bessie, and hoped to start a school for African-American fliers. Coleman died in a plane crash in 1926. Her pioneering role was an inspiration to early pilots and to the African-American and Native American communities.

Thank you for joining me in celebrating Bessie Coleman, a woman who is childless, who wasn’t afraid to say NO. A woman who didn’t let a system stop her from being seen. I see myself in her smile.  

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