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AIR
PIONEER
by Bob Bowman
Texas Aviation Hall of Famer
In 1921 she became the only black pilot in the world. A year later
she became the first black woman to fly over American soil.
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This
month, as America commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Wright
brothers' first powered flight, East Texas is quietly remembering
another pioneer who set an aviation milestone.
Born at Atlanta in Cass County, Bessie Coleman was an unlikely trend-setter
for her time. She was a woman, a black and had none of the resources
of others who followed the Wrights into aviation history.
Bessie was the sixth of ten children in the Atlanta home of George
and Susan Coleman. The Colemans moved to Waxahachie where George left
the family, leaving his wife to raise Bessie and three sisters. The
family survived by picking cotton, doing laundry and cooking for white
households. But Bessie yearned for more. She finished eight grades
at a one-room school and attended a term at a college in Oklahoma.
She was picking cotton when the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk,
North Carolina, but in 1915, at the age of 23, she moved from Texas
to Chicago to live with a brother and pursue a chance "to amount to
something." Convinced she wanted to fly, she saved money to travel
to France for flying lessons at the Federation Aeronautique Internationale
and in 1921 she became the only black pilot in the world. A year later
she became the first black woman to fly over American soil.
Bessie soon became a role model, not only for blacks and women, but
for others who admired her tenacity and endurance.
She barnstormed, performed sky stunts and flew crop dusters to earn
money to establish her own flying school -- a dream that died with
her in 1926 when she crashed the first plane of her own, a $400 Jenny.
On April 30 in Jacksonville, Florida, she and her mechanic took the
Jenny up for a test flight. The aircraft malfunctioned and the mechanic,
who was piloting from the front seat, lost control. Bessie fell from
the open cockpit several hundred feet to her death.
More than 5,000 people attended her memorial services in Chicago and
another 10,000 filed past her coffin to pay their last respects.
Only after her death did Bessie receive the recognition she desired.
Her dream of a flying school for African Americans was fulfilled when
William J. Powell established the Bessie Coleman Aero club
in Los Angeles. Influenced by the Aero Club, hundreds of black aviators
-- including the Flying Blackbirds, the Flying Hobos,
and the Tuskegee Airmen -- continued to make Bessie's dream
a reality.
In 1977, more than fifty years after her death, women pilots in the
Chicago area established the Bessie Coleman Aviators Club.
The ensuing years brought additional accolades. Chicago Mayor Richard
Daley redesignated a road at O'Hare Airport as Bessie Coleman Drive
in 1990 and in 1995 the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp in Bessie's
honor, commemorating "her singular accomplishment in becoming the
world's first African American pilot and, by definition, an American
legend."
In 2000, the little black girl from Atlanta who dreamed of a better
life was inducted into the Texas Aviation Hall of Fame and,
in Atlanta, the main road to the town's airport also bears the name,
Bessie Coleman Drive. |
©
Bob Bowman
All
Things Historical >
December
14, 2003 column
(All Things Historical is distributed as a public service by the East
Texas Historical Association. Bob Bowman is a past president of the
Association and the author of 30 books about East Texas.)
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