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Queen B of Miami: The Sensational Bessie Stringfield

Since blasting into existence in the late nineteenth century, motorcycles have captured every eye they have crossed. Freedom, mystery, fun, and rebellion are all tags people often adhere to those who dare to ride these machines, but when one certain person tore through towns they also provoked feeling of shock and, unfortunately, anger. Despite this, they never stopped riding. Their name was Bessie Stringfield. She was a woman. She was black. And regardless of the dangers facing her in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, she boldly rode for herself and her country declaring “What I did was fun, and I loved it.”

Bessie Stringfield image via MotorcycleMuseum.com.

Matching the mystique of her motorcycle is Bessie��s own life story. Although some accounts claim she was born in North Carolina, several other accounts and Bessie herself state that she was born on February 11th 1911 in Kingston, Jamaica to a Dutch domestic servant named Maria Ellis and her Jamaican employer James Ferguson. Before she was five years old Bessie found herself uprooted from home when her family relocated to Boston, but the more tragic shift was to come soon after their arrival. In one version of events, both her parents died from smallpox shortly after the move. In another, her mother died of the disease and her father, unable to cope with the loss, left young Bessie abandoned on a Boston street and vanished from her life. After living in an orphanage for a few years Bessie was finally adopted by a wealthy and devout Irish Catholic woman who took the girl into her family and treated her as an absolute equal. When her sixteenth birthday was on the horizon, Bessie had a very specific request, she had been trying out their neighbor’s motorcycle and she wanted one to call her very own. Her mother told her that nice girls didn’t go around riding motorcycles but when her birthday arrived Bessie’s wish was granted and her mother presented her with a 1928 Indian Scout motorcycle.

A young Bessie on her motorcycle. Image via MotorcycleMuseum.com.

Bessie had very little experience with motorcycles but once she began riding she proved to have a natural talent, one she attributed to her strong faith and “the man upstairs”, claiming she prayed to be able to ride and she woke up possessing the skills. Once she began riding Bessie was unstoppable and after graduating high school she took off on trips all over New England, but she wanted more. She began playing a game where she would toss a penny onto a map and traveling wherever it landed carrying only her leather jacket, a money belt, and extra clothes that could be rolled up into her bike’s saddlebags. In 1930 when Bessie was nineteen years old she completed her first solo cross country trip on her bike, the first ever by a black woman, and in the coming years she made seven more cross country trips and traveled through all lower forty-eight states. In order to finance her excursions she turned to her talents and began performing riding stunts in carnivals along the way including the infamous Wall of Death, a stunt that involved a large round cage where she would ride around the inside with enough speed to be suspended sideways on the walls.

Bessie Stringfield image via MotorcycleMuseum.com.

It might sound like a dream, riding around the country on your motorcycle, performing in carnivals, and answering to no one. But the horrible fact was that every time Bessie Stringfield rode on any of the twenty-seven Harley Davidson motorcycles that she owned throughout her life she was putting herself at risk. In the 1930s and 40s many parts of the country were deeply segregated and did not look kindly at any black woman, let alone one who rode a motorcycle and did exactly as she pleased. She used The Negro Motorist Green Book to find safe places to sleep across the country and when no one gave her a bed she slept on her motorcycle in the parking lots of gas stations using her jacket as a pillow and propping her feet up on the seat. In one horrific incident Stringfield was traveling through the deep south and in Georgia she was confronted by the Ku Klux Klan but she literally left them in the dust, jumping on her bike and riding away faster than any of them could follow. She was very aware of how dangerous her riding was but she did not worry, always saying that her faith made her believe she would always be safe and taken care of.

During a ride In the 1940s Stringfield stopped inside a movie theater to rest and she saw a newsreel about women helping in the war effort. Inspired by the reel, Stringfield went on to enlist as the only woman in a black motorcycle dispatch unit of the United States army. It was not as simple as just signing up, in order to join the unit she had to pass a battery of tests including riding up sandy hills and being able to weave a bridge made of rope and tree limbs by hand. Once again Stringfield defied the naysayers, passed her tests, and ran classified documents in between domestic bases on her bike from 1941 to 1945, all with an U.S. Army emblem proudly affixed to the front of her bike. Unbelievably, she still encountered racism while making her government deliveries with one encounter resulting in her being run off of the road by a man driving a pickup truck. Nothing phased Stringfield though, she simply brushed off the incidents and continued on her way.

Bessie Stringfield image via MotorcycleMuseum.com.

By the 1950s Stringfield decided she needed some sort of home base and she settled near Miami, Florida and looked for a new direction. In her years on the road she had married and divorced six men (all but one were twenty years her junior), had three children who all died as infants, and officially adopted her third husband’s last name Stringfield at his request because he felt she made the name famous. She bought a house and initially pursued a career in cooking but she switched gears again becoming a licensed practical nurse.

A rare image of Bessie Stringfield without her bike. Image via MotorcycleMuseum.com.

She may have made some changes but she never stopped riding and defying those who tried to hold her down. After run-ins with Florida law enforcement who tried to tell her she was not allowed to ride her motorcycle she met with the chief of police personally asking him to meet her in a park so she could prove her riding ability. He agreed, and after their meeting she was never bothered by the Miami police again. Stringfield went on and founded the Iron Horse Motorcycle Club, used her house as a place for riders to socialize, led motorcycle brigades in parades and celebrations (sometimes with two of her beloved poodles riding along on her knees), rode her motorcycle to mass every Sunday, and was dubbed “The Motorcycle Queen of Miami”. Her local fame never affected her though and she remained humble, becoming friends with the families she worked with, and creating stories wherever she went. One account from the child of a family friend recalls a day when their mother was unable to pick them up from school so Stringfield picked them up and brought them back on her bike, “We found Bessie out there on her Harley and in her leather jacket…I was just a little kid so I was only wrapped around half of her..I could feel the heat from the exhaust on my leg…All the kids were going crazy”.

Later in life Stringfield continued to defy anything that tried to keep her from the road. In the 1980s her motorcycle was vandalized and she considered selling her house in order to replace it, refusing to ever own a used motorcycle. Instead, she rented or borrowed bikes when she wanted to ride. As she grew older and he health began to decline her doctors urged her to stop riding, but she refused, saying that if she stopped riding she would die so she would just never stop.

True to her word, Stringfield did not stop but her ride finally came to an end on February 16th 1993 after suffering complications from an enlarged heart. She was adamant that when she died she did not want a service, but those who knew her had other ideas and people from as far away from Texas congregated in Florida to remember the Motorcycle Queen of Miami.

When Ohio’s Motorcycle Heritage Museum opened in 1990 they included Stringfield in their opening exhibits and the honors continued after her death. In 2000 the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) created the Bessie Stringfield Award to be given annually to distinguished women bringing emerging markets to the motorcycling world. In 2002 Bessie Stringfield was inducted into the American Motorcyclist Association Hall of Fame and she continues to be honored yearly in the Bessie Stringfield’s All Female Ride, a long distance riding event including pep rallies, speaking engagements, and educational events on long distance biking in honor of the motorcycle pioneer.

In 2016 the ride ended in Stringfield’s last residence of Opa-Locka, Florida and the mayor of Miami Gardens officially proclaimed June 24th as Bessie Stringfield Day.

Bessie Stringfield image via MotorcycleMuseum.com.

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To read more about the incredible life of Bessie Stringfield please visit https://bessiestringfieldbook.com/ and keep an eye out for the exclusive authorized biography by Ann Ferrar.

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