Bessie Coleman

Bessie Coleman was born on January 26, 1892, in Atlanta, Texas and moves to Waxahachie, Texas, at age 2. She was the tenth of thirteen children born to George and Susan Coleman. 

[Courtesy of University of Texas at Austin–Briscoe Center for American History]

The U.S. Supreme Court legalized racial segregation, ushering in a new era of racism and racial terror against African Americans.

[Courtesy of New York Public Library]

Her father, part Cherokee, returned to American Indian territory in Oklahoma to escape discrimination. Coleman stayed with her mother in Texas, where she spent most of her childhood picking cotton and doing laundry for white families. 

[Courtesy of University of Texas at Austin–Briscoe Center for American History]

The Wright Brothers invented the first successful airplane, The Wright Flyer, which achieved the first sustained and controlled flight with a pilot on board near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

[Courtesy of Getty]

[Courtesy of Getty]

Harriet Quimby was the first woman to cross the English Channel. A month later, Quimby and passenger William Willard died in an accident at the Harvard-Boston Aviation Meet.

[Courtesy of Library of Congress]

Coleman moved to Chicago, where her older brother Walter lived, as part of the Great Migration to escape racial discrimination in Texas and to search for better job opportunities. She soon found a job as a manicurist at the White Sox Barber Shop on Chicago’s South Side.

[Courtesy of Farm Security Administration]

The harsh segregation policies and discrimination that African Americans experienced after the Civil War, coupled with the post-World War I shortage of industrial laborers, led to a massive internal migration in the U.S. Between 1915-1970, more than 6 million African Americans move from the South to urban centers across the Northeast, Midwest, and West Coast.

[Caption: Courtesy of Florida Memory] 

The film Birth of A Nation premiered in Los Angeles. Based on the novel The Clansman, the film glorified the Ku Klux Klan during the Civil War, inspiring violent acts against African Americans, including lynchings, and a resurgence of the KKK nationwide. 

Eugene Jacques Bullard moved to France to escape racial discrimination in the U.S., and attended the Aéronautique Militaire. In 1917, Bullard obtained a French pilot’s license and became the first African American military pilot. He served in the French air force as the only African American pilot during World War I.

Inspired by European women and Eugene Bullard ,who served as combat pilots in WWI, Coleman decided to become a pilot, but she was rejected from all aviation schools in the U.S. She met with Robert S. Abbott, editor and publisher of the Chicago Defender, and he agreed to sponsor her trip to France to become a pilot. 

After WWI ended in 1918, military pilots returned to the U.S. seeking jobs as pilots. At the same time, the U.S. government had a surplus of “Jenny” biplanes, and started selling them at a very cheap price ($200, while during the war the cost was $5,000). Military pilots now able to buy their own planes developed “barnstorming.” Barnstorming, which got its name because aviators made arrangements with local farmers to perform air shows in their fields, became one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the 1920s. The performances consisted of dangerous stunts, loops, and dives.

[Courtesy of National Air and Space Museum]

African Americans experience a surge of racial terror during the summer and fall of 1919, with more than 500 people injured, African American neighborhoods torched, and 1,000 African American families displaced. Racial hostilities led to race riots in many cities in the U.S., resulting in the deaths of 15 whites and 23 African Americans. The three most violent civil disturbances occurred in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Elaine, Arkansas. 

[Courtesy of Chicago Tribune] 

Coleman moved to France and started her flying lessons at Caudron Brothers’ School of Aviation in Le Crotoy.

[Courtesy of the National Air and Space Museum] 

Coleman became the first African American female pilot, and the first African American to earn an international license to fly. 

[Courtesy of the National Air and Space Museum]

A month after buying her own plane, Coleman took off from Santa Monica, when the biplane’s motor stalled and crashed. Coleman survived the crash, breaking several ribs and one leg.

After recovering from her injuries, Coleman made her comeback with a barnstorming tour across Texas, including an exhibition in her hometown, Waxahachie. She refused to perform unless blacks and whites could enter the stadium from the same entrance. Her motto was “No Uncle Tom stuff for me.” She also hosted lectures to save money to buy a new plane. 

[Courtesy of Getty]

Despite the plane’s poor condition, Coleman and Wills took it for a test flight while preparing for an airshow scheduled in Jacksonville to benefit the Negro Welfare League. Wills lost control of the plane and Bessie, not wearing a seatbelt, was thrown 2,000 feet from the open cockpit to her death. The wreckage was accidentally set on fire by a cigarette ash, making it hard for officials to determine the cause of the accident. Bessie Coleman died on April 30, 1926, at age 34.

[Courtesy of The Chicago Defender] 

Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. An airmail pilot, Lindeberg quickly rose to fame after completing the first nonstop flight between New York and Paris.

New safety regulations put an end to barnstorming in the U.S.

[Courtesy of the Library of Congress]

William Powell was an engineer, soldier, and aviator. In 1928, he was accepted to a flying school in Los Angeles, and in 1932 received his license to fly. Following the footsteps of Bessie Coleman, Powell wanted to create opportunities for African Americans in aviation. In 1929, the Bessie Coleman Aero Club opened its doors to everyone, including women. In 1931 Powell organized the first all African American air show.

[Courtesy of National Air and Space Museum] 

Amelia Earhart became the first female to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, traveling 2,000 miles in under 15 hours.

The U.S. War Department established the 99th Pursuit Squadron, later known as the Tuskegee Airmen, consisting of the first African American military pilots. The Tuskegee Airmen paved the way towards the desegregation of armed forces, which was enforced by President Harry Truman in 1948.

[Courtesy of the Library of Congress] 

[Courtesy of National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution] 

[Courtesy of Getty]

[Courtesy of National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution]