#Bessie Coleman

[cartermagazine]

Today In History

Born January 26, 1892, Elizabeth “Bessie” Coleman became the first woman of African American and Native American descent to earn an aviation pilot’s license, as well as the first person of African American and Native American descent to earn an international aviation license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.

Aviation professionals and aficionados continue to be inspired by Bessie’s daring and determination.

“The air is the only place free from prejudices. I knew we had no aviators, 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.”

CARTER™️ Magazine

[little-desi-historian]

Black Historical Figures I think are cool af!

Happy Black History Month! Below the cut you’ll find a list of 10 black historical figures I think are super cool (and often overlooked in favour of their white/non-black counterparts) all of the figures are inspirational to me in some way and I think anyone can learn from their examples, regardless of race.

Dido Elizabeth Belle aka Dido Belle Lindsay - staying the course of your beliefs, knowing you deserve better. Knowing what’s right is more than possible.

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George(s) - don’t let anyone take your talents and passions from you. Those who treat you wrong don’t deserve you.

Phillis Weatly/Phyllis Weatly - no matter what you’ve been subjected to, don’t let anyone take your voice from you.

James Armistead Lafayette - fight (spy) for what you believe in. You may turn out to be the most powerful piece in the fight.

Harriet Tubman - no matter the evils of the world, there are good people out there, don’t forget your strengths and allies.

Freda Josephine Baker (née McDonald) best known simply as Josephine Baker - dance and keep dancing, no matter how bad things are. You only live once.

Bessie Coleman - pursue your dreams no matter who tells you that you can’t. You may match them in renown yet.

Gladys Bentley - wear what you want, speak how you want, and love whomever you choose.

Marsha P. Johnson - be here, be queer, and speak truth to power.

Maya Angelou born Marguerite Annie Johnson - write, write, write, oh… and don’t fear life.

[the-badger-mole]

im sorry if this comes off as ignorant, but who's the person in your ao3 pfp?

That's Bessie Coleman, the first black woman to earn a pilot's licence. You should look her up. She's fascinating

[lesbianlenses]

This is Bessie Coleman, an early American acrobatic aviator. She is the first Black pilot, the first Native American pilot, and one of the first female pilots.

Born on January 26, 1892 in Atlanta, Texas to a family of sharecroppers, Bessie Coleman grew up in poverty. Her father abandoned the family when she was nine, and her elder brothers soon left as well, leaving her mother with the four youngest of her thirteen children. While taking care of her younger sisters, Bessie completed all eight available years of primary education, excelling in math. She enrolled at the Colored Agricultural and Normal University in Langston, Oklahoma in 1910, but lack of funds forced her to leave after only one term.

Five years later, she left the South and moved to Chicago to join her brother, where she worked as a beautician and manicurist for several years. An avid reader, she learned about World War I pilots in the newspaper and became intrigued by the prospect of flying. Her brother taunted her that she would never be able to fly. As a black woman, she had no chance of acceptance at any American pilot school, so she moved to France in 1919 and enrolled at the Ecole d'Aviation des Freres Caudon at Le Crotoy. After returning briefly to the United States, she spent one more term in France practicing more advanced flying before finally settling back in her birth country. She did exhibition flying and gave lectures across the country from 1922 to 1926. While flying, she refused to perform unless the audiences were desegregated.

Upon saving her money and nearing her goal of opening a flight school for blacks in the United States, Bessie Coleman was tragically killed on April 30, 1926 during a rehearsal for an aerial show when the airplane she was in unexpectedly went into a dive and then a spin, subsequently throwing Coleman from the airplane at 2,000 feet. Upon examination of the aircraft, it was later discovered that a wrench used to maintain the engine had jammed the controls of the airplane. Bessie was 34 years old. It is unknown whether her murder was an accident or intentional sabotage.

Despite her tragic fate, Coleman’s legacy of flight endures and she is credited with inspiring generations of African-American aviators, male and female, including the Tuskegee Airmen and NASA astronauts.

[barbielore]

As February is Black History Month / African-American History Month (I'll be honest I don't know whether either of those terms are preferred - if someone could let me know, I would appreciate it), I thought I would make a post about how Mattel and the Barbie brand have intersected with this.

I have previously made some posts about this subject so just to collate some links:

A brief history of depictions of Black Barbies.

One of Mattel's first media tie-in dolls - Julia from the show Julia.

Alpha Kappa Alpha Barbie to commemorate America's first Black sorority.

Backstory on two of the dolls in the Barbie doll line depicted exclusively as Black women - Christie and Nikki.

The lore of Brooklyn and Malibu.

To expand on the above - I must shout out again Kitty Black Perkins by name even though I mentioned her in the history of Black Barbies post. Perkins is a now-retired Barbie designer credited with designing the first Barbie to be depicted as Black (that is to say, not a Francie or a Christie or another character - but Barbie), among other Barbies.

In addition to the first Black Barbie, Perkins is credited with design of four Holiday Barbies, as well as a number of other Barbies and friends of Barbie - apparently designing or having input into the design of hundreds of Barbies.

Without the influence of Perkins, it's very possible that we would not have modern doll releases featuring Brooklyn as a lead alongside Malibu.

Mattel have included a number of historical Black women in their Inspiring Women collection; this is not all of them by any means, but an example.

[womeninfictionandirl]

Bessie Coleman by Allison Adams

Bessie Coleman (1892 – 1926) was an American civil aviator. She was the first female pilot of African American descent and the first woman of Native American descent to hold a pilot license. She was also the first person of African American and Native American descent to hold an international pilot license. Bessie would only perform if the crowds were desegregated and entered through the same gates.

[blackstar1887]

Breaking Barriers: The Inspiring Journey of Bessie Coleman, America's First Black Female Aviator

[thepastisalreadywritten]

By Rachel Hartigan

Published: 9 March 2023

The history of the first women who flew is a tale of breathtaking bravery and lives cut tragically short.

On 8 March 1910 — 113 years ago today — Raymonde de Laroche, a former Parisian stage actress, became the first licensed female pilot in the world.

Nine years later, she was killed when the experimental aircraft she was flying dove into the ground.

Harriet Quimby, a well-known journalist, became the first American woman to obtain a pilot’s license in 1911.

She died a year later when her new plane pitched her into Boston Harbor.

In 1921, Bessie Coleman was the first Black woman to receive a pilot’s license — she had to travel to France to find a flight school that would teach her.

But five years later, she was killed when a wrench got caught in her plane’s controls, sending the plane plummeting.  

Flying was perilous in aviation’s earliest days.

"The planes were flimsy contraptions fashioned from bamboo, wire and fabric,” according to the late historian Eileen Lebow.

They didn’t have seat belts or even a roof to hold the pilot should the aircraft flip over.

Yet women like Laroche, Quimby and Coleman were willing to risk their lives for the freedom that flights promised.

“Aviation was a new profession seemingly free from the gender expectations and sex typing that limited women elsewhere,” noted historian Susan Ware at the National Air and Space Museum’s inaugural Amelia Earhart Lecture in Aviation History in 2022.

“Women were getting in at the beginning.”

For many of them, the thrill of flying was intoxicating but so was the opportunity to be assessed on their own merits.

“These women wanted to be judged as human beings rather than as women,” says Ware.

Coleman especially saw flight as a path toward broader gender and racial equality.

"I knew we had no aviators, neither men nor women, and I knew the Race needed to be represented along this most important line,” she said shortly after she returned to the United States from France in 1921.

“I thought it my duty to risk my life to learn aviating and to encourage flying among men and women of the Race who are so far behind.”

Before she died, she’d planned to open a flight school that would welcome African American aviators.

Many early women fliers shared the dream that achievement in this field would lead to more independence.

As one journalist and amateur pilot wrote in 1930, “A woman who can find fulfillment in the skies will never again need to live her life in some man’s spare moments.”

Some of that independence would come from the ease of travel that aviation promised in its earliest incarnation.

Many people, including Amelia Earhart, believed at first that airplanes would become as commonly owned by families as bicycles and automobiles already had.

Other women embraced the financial independence that they thought the new field would offer.

Neta Snook, whose first solo flight was in a plane she rebuilt, made her living by offering up her plane for aerial advertising, test flying experimental aircraft, taking paying passengers up for aerial tours, and teaching beginning fliers, including Earhart.

Gladys Roy, on the other hand, earned good money as a stunt pilot, dancing the Charleston and playing tennis on the wings midflight for amazed crowds at air shows.

(Snook retired from aviation when she became pregnant in her mid-twenties and lived to be 95; Roy died at 25 when she accidentally stepped into a propeller.)

Sisters Katherine and Marjorie Stinson took a more long-term approach, establishing a flight school in Texas with their mother and brother that trained, among others, Canadian pilots in the run up to World War I.

When the U.S. entered the war, the country’s civil aviation — including the Stinson School for Flying — was shut down.

Katherine went to Europe to serve as an ambulance driver while Marjorie became an aeronautical draftsman for the Navy.

War and the development of commercial aviation conspired to dampen women’s hopes of equality in the air.

Experienced women pilots such as LaRoche and Katherine Stinson volunteered to serve in their countries’ nascent air forces during World War I.

They were denied, the military preferring to train unseasoned men.

The same pattern occurred in World War II, although Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) did ferry U.S. military planes as civilian pilots during the conflict.

(The Soviet Union, however, had three female air combat regiments.)

The dream of every family owning a private plane never did materialize; the infrastructure required would have been too extensive.

Instead, the commercial aviation industry developed, hiring men — many of whom had been trained as pilots by the military.

It was no use pointing out, as Earhart did, that "if women had access to the training and equipment men had we could certainly do as well."

Helen Richey became the first female commercial pilot in 1934 but was hounded out of her job.

The U.S. Commerce Department, under pressure from the all-male pilots’ union, decreed that women weren’t allowed to fly scheduled routes in bad weather.

(They’d previously considered “grounding female pilots for nine days a month during menstruation,” according to Ware).

There wouldn’t be another female commercial pilot until 1973, when Emily Howell Warner was hired by Frontier.

[barbiesince59]

Inspiring Women: Bessie Coleman - 2022

[valkyries-things]

BESSIE COLEMAN // AVIATOR

“She was the first African-American woman and first Native American to hold a pilot license. She earned it from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale on June 15 1921. She had an early interest in flying however AAs, NAs and women had no flight training opportunities in the US, so saved and obtained sponsorships to go to France for flight school. She became a high-profile pilot in notoriously dangerous air shows in the US. She died in a plane crash in 1926 and wasn't able to start a school for African-American fliers.”

[sepdet]

The kids are all right.

This is a frustrating story, because it seems like the one person who didn't learn anything is the teacher. (I was going to write a snarky quip refuting her, but then I realized one might debate whether a "hero" requires fame, or only deeds, or some secret third thing. Good grounds for a high school debate, but not to nitpick a third grader.)

However, I like this news story because it doesn't center the closeminded teacher. Instead, it centers both historical black aviator Bessie Coleman and one of her youngest fans, third grader Alex Williams. Part of the video is Alex telling us in her own words why Bessie Coleman matters to her and to the world, and why Alex refused to follow a teacher's instructions.

(Nevertheless — civil disobedience 101 — you gotta be prepared for negative consequences, if you defy orders, break rules, or challenge authority. Alex got a mini lesson in that, too. The story of Bessie Coleman shows that for some things, it's worth it.)

[droitsdesfemmes]

Bessie Coleman, 1921.

Née le 26 janvier 1892 à Atlanta, Texas, Bessie Coleman est entrée dans l'histoire comme la première femme noire d'origine amérindienne à devenir pilote d'avion. Issue d'une famille de 13 enfants, sa jeunesse est marquée par la pauvreté et les défis de la ségrégation raciale. Malgré ces obstacles, elle nourrit des rêves ambitieux dès son plus jeune âge.

Après avoir terminé ses études dans une école ségréguée, Bessie s'installe à Chicago où elle travaille comme manucure. Inspirée par les récits des pilotes revenant de la Première Guerre mondiale, elle développe une passion pour l'aviation. Cependant, son chemin vers le ciel est semé d'embûches. Aux États-Unis, aucune école de pilotage n'accepte de femmes noires. Refusant de se laisser décourager, elle apprend le français et s'envole pour la France.

Là, elle s'inscrit à l'école de pilotage des frères Caudron. Après seulement sept mois de formation, Bessie fait sensation en obtenant sa licence de pilote de la Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, brisant ainsi les barrières raciales et de genre dans l'aviation.

De retour aux États-Unis, elle fait sensation. Elle se spécialise dans les spectacles aériens, exécutant des cascades époustouflantes et gagne le surnom de « Queen Bess ». À travers ses performances, elle rêve d'ouvrir une école de pilotage pour les Afro-Américains.

Mais sa carrière est tragiquement écourtée. Le 30 avril 1926, lors d'une répétition pour un spectacle aérien en Floride, elle est éjectée de son avion et meurt sur le coup. Son héritage, cependant, perdure. Bessie Coleman reste une figure emblématique, symbolisant le courage, la détermination et le pouvoir de briser les barrières.

Son rêve de former des pilotes afro-américains se concrétise en 1928 avec la création, par William J. Powell, du Bessie Coleman Aero Club et de la Bessie Coleman Flying School à Los Angeles. En 1931, des pilotes de Chicago lui rendent hommage en survolant sa tombe et y répandant des fleurs, une tradition qui perdure chaque année jusqu'à la retraite de tous les pilotes constituant le groupe d'origine. Son nom est donné à des rues et lieux publics dans diverses villes. En 1995, la poste américaine émet un timbre à son effigie. Bessie est également honorée par des intronisations posthumes dans des halls of fame et inspire une bande dessinée (Black Squaw) et le nom d'une montagne sur Pluton (Coleman Mons).

[mikeshouts]

Bessie Coleman Joins The Barbie Inspiring Women Series

👏🏻😍

Follow us for more Tech Culture and Lifestyle Stuff.

[3rdeyeblaque]

Jan 26th, we venerate Ancestor Bessie Coleman on her 131st birthday. 🎉

Truly one of a stunning kind, we celebrate Sister Coleman for her ambition that led her to becoming the very 1st Black & Native American to earn her pilot license and to fly internationally.

With her mixed heritage & her unique talent setting her far apart on the world stage, Sister Coleman used her platform to inspire Black-Native Women (and others around the world) to pursue their dreams no matter how unconventional or male-dominated the industry, while advocating for desegregation. She refused to perform at any air shows that were segregated. She also began investing in opening up her own flying school to teach fellow Black-Native women how to fly.

"The air is the only place free from prejudice. 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. " - Bessie Coleman

We pour libations & give extra 💐 to Bessie Coleman! May her fearless grit continue to inspire us all; may she serve as a blueprint & a beacon for those who seek their maximum potential in pursuing their dreams

[thatwritererinoriordan]

Barbie Inspiring Women Doll, Bessie Coleman Collectible Dressed in Aviator Suit with Helmet and Goggles

[sharonrb]

Bessie Coleman

By 

Jone Johnson Lewis

Updated on January 31, 2018

Bessie Coleman, a stunt pilot, was a pioneer in aviation. She was the first African American woman with a pilot's license, the first African American woman to fly a plane, and the first American with an international pilot's license.  She lived from January 26, 1892 (some sources give 1893) to April 30, 1926

Early Life

Bessie Coleman was born in Atlanta, Texas, in 1892, tenth of thirteen children. The family soon moved to a farm near Dallas. The family worked the land as sharecroppers, and Bessie Coleman worked in the cotton fields.

Her father, George Coleman, moved to Indian Territory, Oklahoma, in 1901, where he had rights, based on having three Indian grandparents. His African American wife, Susan, with five of their children still at home, refused to go with him. She supported the children by picking cotton and taking in laundry and ironing.

Susan, Bessie Coleman's mother, encouraged her daughter's education, though she was herself illiterate, and though Bessie had to miss school often to help in the cotton fields or to watch her younger siblings. After Bessie graduated from eighth grade with high marks, she was able to pay, with her own savings and some from her mother, for a semester's tuition at an industrial college in Oklahoma, Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University.

When she dropped out of school after a semester, she returned home, working as a laundress. In 1915 or 1916 she moved to Chicago to stay with her two brothers who had already moved there. She went to beauty school, and became a manicurist, where she met many of the "Black elite" of Chicago.

Learning to Fly

Bessie Coleman had read about the new field of aviation, and her interest was heightened when her brothers regaled her with tales of French women flying planes in World War I. She tried to enroll in aviation school, but was turned down. It was the same story with other schools where she applied.

One of her contacts through her job as a manicurist was Robert S. Abbott, publisher of the Chicago Defender. He encouraged her to go to France to study flying there. She got a new position managing a chili restaurant to save money while studying French at the Berlitz school. She followed Abbott's advice, and, with funds from several sponsors including Abbott, left for France in 1920.

In France, Bessie Coleman was accepted in a flying school, and received her pilot's license—the first African American woman to do so. After two more months of study with a French pilot, she returned to New York in September, 1921. There, she was celebrated in the Black press and was ignored by the mainstream press.

Wanting to make her living as a pilot, Bessie Coleman returned to Europe for advanced training in acrobatic flying—stunt flying. She found that training in France, in the Netherlands, and in Germany. She returned to the United States in 1922.

Bessie Coleman, Barnstorming Pilot

That Labor Day weekend, Bessie Coleman flew in an air show on Long Island in New York, with Abbott and the Chicago Defender as sponsors. The event was held in honor of Black veterans of World War I. She was billed as "the world's greatest woman flyer."

Weeks later, she flew in a second show, this one in Chicago, where crowds lauded her stunt flying. From there she became a popular pilot at air shows around the United States.

She announced her intent to start a flying school for African Americans, and began recruiting students for that future venture. She started a beauty shop in Florida to help raise funds. She also regularly lectured at schools and churches.

Bessie Coleman landed a movie role in a film called Shadow and Sunshine, thinking it would help her promote her career.  She walked away when she realized that the depiction of her as a Black woman would be as a stereotypical "Uncle Tom." Those of her backers who were in the entertainment industry in turn walked away from supporting her career.

In 1923, Bessie Coleman bought her own plane, a World War I surplus Army training plane. She crashed in the plane days later, on February 4, when the plane nose-dived. After a long recuperation from broken bones, and a longer struggle to find new backers, she finally was able to get some new bookings for her stunt flying.

On Juneteenth (June 19) in 1924 , she flew in a Texas air show. She bought another plane—this one also an older model, a Curtiss JN-4, one that was low-priced enough that she could afford it.

May Day in Jacksonville

In April, 1926, Bessie Coleman was in Jacksonville, Florida, to prepare for a May Day Celebration sponsored by the local Negro Welfare League. On April 30, she and her mechanic went for a test flight, with the mechanic piloting the plane and Bessie in the other seat, with her seat belt unbuckled so that she could lean out and get a better view of the ground as she planned the next day's stunts.

A loose wrench got wedged in the open gear box, and the controls jammed. Bessie Coleman was thrown from the plane at 1,000 feet, and she died in the fall to the ground. The mechanic could not regain control, and the plane crashed and burned, killing the mechanic.

After a well-attended memorial service in Jacksonville on May 2, Bessie Coleman was buried in Chicago. Another memorial service there drew crowds as well.

Every April 30, African American aviators—men and women—fly in formation over Lincoln Cemetery in southwest Chicago (Blue Island) and drop flowers on Bessie Coleman's grave.

Legacy of Bessie Coleman

Black flyers founded the Bessie Coleman Aero Clubs, right after her death. the Bessie Aviators organization was founded by Black women pilots in 1975, open to women pilots of all races.

In 1990, Chicago renamed a road near O'Hare International Airport for Bessie Coleman. That same year, Lambert - St. Louis International Airport unveiled a mural honoring "Black Americans in Flight," including Bessie Coleman. In 1995, the U.S. Postal Service honored Bessie Coleman with a commemorative stamp.

In October, 2002, Bessie Coleman was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in New York.