"Sense of Adventure, Positive Attitude, Determination to Succeed." (Chicago City Council Resolution on Bessie Coleman, 1992)

Elizabeth Coleman, Aviator

On a cool crisp morning in my youth, I launched myself from Deer Valley Airport in Phoenix on my first “long distance” flight.  It was a short journey  over about half a day, through several hundred miles of Arizona, Nevada and California.  Of everything I remember about that flight, it was the freedom of it, and the sense of empowerment, that remain with me today.  For those moments, I was the only one in control, I was responsible for every outcome. In flying over several decades since then, those feelings of freedom, responsibility and accomplishment are among my most enduring impressions of the joys of flying.

Can you imagine how important (or exhilarating) that experience would be for someone from a non-privileged background - where freedom in general, and more specifically, freedom of opportunity, was an almost unheard of thing?  Bessie Coleman, remarking on that sense of freedom experienced in flying, said that she didn’t see any racism or experience prejudice while at the controls of her airplane. In flying, she escaped those things for that time that she was in the sky (that were so otherwise common not only for black people, but also for women).

I had been thinking of some way to honor Black History Month. I thought of writing about Rosa Parks, or the Buffalo Soldiers.  But I ran across the story of Elizabeth Coleman (or Bessie, as she is known to history).  She was not only one of the earliest female pilots; she was one of the first black pilots.  She was also part Native American (Cherokee) and so she may have been the first Native American aviator as well.  But above all, Elizabeth Coleman was a winner and the real story is about what she went through to accomplish what she did. 

Life wasn't very easy, and obstacles were thrown in front of her all of her life.  She was raised in Atlanta, Texas, which is about 22 air miles SSW of Texarkana. While it is reported she had a poor but “happy childhood,” her father left the family while she was still a child. Like most poor children in her circumstances, Elizabeth helped with her siblings and worked hard, both in the home and outside of it. Bessie’s young life consisted mostly of school, watching after her brothers and sisters, chores and church.  The entire family picked cotton whenever it needed picking (they were sharecroppers). 

Elizabeth walked 4 miles each way to school and apparently she went every day because she completed through eighth grade. She went on to post-secondary education in Oklahoma, until her savings ran out and she was forced to return home.  She had been especially capable in mathematics. The college she attended specialized in agricultural education and the training of teachers (for the “colored” schools only of course).  Those times, roughly around 1910, were at the height of Jim Crow segregation in the USA; black folks were “equal” - as long as they kept to themselves.  All that aside, what Bessie Coleman wanted and strove for was to “amount to something.” [1]

She left Texas for Chicago with hope in her heart.  While the racism and limitations blacks experienced in the south were present there as well (if in less blatant forms), she also found opportunities.  She lived with her brothers and she became a manicurist in local barber shops.  She heard the stories of those who had returned from service in WW1, and having learned about flying, she decided to become a pilot; among the stories told to her were about how French women were "superior" to American women because they were allowed to fly!  But for Elizabeth, the problem was how?  No one would teach her – she was not only female but she was also black in early twentieth century America.  White flight instructors wouldn’t teach her.  Male black pilots wouldn’t either. But Elizabeth Coleman wouldn't take no for an answer, at a time when that attitude could have gotten her beaten or worse in some areas of this country.

Nieuport Type 82

Flying is how she had decided she would “amount to something,” and so on the advice of a knowledgeable friend and mentor, she went to France, where she could obtain the training she wanted.  She saved her money, she got local financial backing in addition, she learned French. Then she went to France and took her flying lessons at the famous Caudron Brothers' school.

The Caudrons held a place in French aviation much as the Wright Brothers did in the USA - they were among the earliest pioneers. Like many American pilots in WW1, she learned to fly in a French Nieuport (like the one in the photo). The Nieuport had a pesky tendency to shed its wings during flight. It took Bessie 7 months. She earned and was granted a pilot's license from the prestigious Federation Aeronautique Internationale (the FAI) in 1921 – the only woman among her classes' graduates and the first black woman ever to earn a license from the FAI.  She had learned enough about aviation and piloting - in French - to obtain that license, even though she had barely a basic ability to speak or understand that language.  She was 29 years old (although for some unknown reason she lied about her age). She continued with more advanced training there, recognizing that in order to be financially successful in aviation, she’d need additional skills. She was the very first American of any race or gender to obtain the FAI's international flying license.

On her return to the US, she was greeted with a good amount of attention and publicity and became a “media sensation,” although it wasn’t all flying and roses from then on (though there was a little of that)…

When Coleman returned to the US in September, 1921, scores of reporters turned out to meet her. The Air Service News noted that Coleman had become “a full-fledged aviatrix, the first of her race.” She was invited as a guest of honor to attend the all-black musical “Shuffle Along.” The entire audience, including the several hundred whites in the orchestra seats, rose to give the first African American female pilot a standing ovation.[2]

She carried herself with a certain amount of swashbuckling “dash,” she was beautiful, she was charismatic and she was a great speaker.  She appeared in airshows (in the then-new "barnstorming" business) and she harbored dreams of opening a flying school of her own – open to all.  She quickly obtained a reputation as an expert and daring pilot. She thought briefly of a movie career in California, although she ultimately declined those offers because of the predjudice she encountered there, which she couldn't tolerate.  Elizabeth Coleman not only rose above prejudice, she actively fought it.

All during this time, money was a problem – she struggled to work for or get funds to buy airplanes, suffered set-backs when she crashed them, opened a beauty shop at one point (to amass money to open her school), gave lectures; she was an "eloquent" speaker.  She was broken and injured in flying crashes and she kept going. She fought racial barriers as well as gender barriers at every turn. [3]  She would refuse to perform – either flying or speaking – unless her audiences were desegregated, or if blacks were not allowed into the venues where she was to fly or speak. While she achieved a phenomenal level of success for someone as limited in means and opportunities as she was, those limitations finally did catch up with her.

Bessie Coleman and a Curtiss Jenny

On April 30, 1926, Bessie and her mechanic took her just-purchased “Jenny” for a test flight.  The Curtiss Jenny was, even then, considered a rattle-trap and a bucket of bolts -- and the one she bought reportedly wasn't even in that good of condition.  But it was what she could afford. During the flight, a forgotten or misplaced wrench got entangled in the control linkage, and the airplane apparently inverted and dove to earth with "jammed" controls.  Elizabeth was not wearing a safety harness (she was stretched up in her seat, trying to observe the ground at the time) and she was thrown out of the plane as it fell – 2,000 feet to the ground. The mechanic was also killed in the ensuing crash.


Thousands of mourners attended services and memorials after her death.  She had been a pilot for only five years. Her flying achievements all took place before Charles Lindbergh made his flight to Paris, and before Amelia Earhart made her famous flights.  What more might this driven and talented young American have accomplished had she lived beyond the young age of 34?  How much of aviation's early history might have had Bessie Coleman's name on it?

As it is, she has become an enduring symbol of personal courage, integrity, talent, intelligence, motivation, confidence, enthusiasm and perseverance in the face of extreme adversity and continual obstacles.  She never quit; she is a lesson in success, despite encountering difficulties in the pursuit. She had all the best qualities we revere.

Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman was an inspiration to countless black would-be aviators – male and female alike -- helping them stand in the face of not only racial injustice but gender inequality and according to William J. Powell (himself an influential and accomplished black aviator of those times) “the barriers within” themselves.[4]   I wonder how many of the Tuskegee airmen were inspired by this intrepid young woman as they faced the same kinds of difficulties or externally imposed obstacles? And Bessie Coleman is also an inspiration to me.

In the intervening years, libraries, airport facilities, streets and schools have been named for Bessie Coleman in cities and towns across our country.  There are scholarship awards in her name, and the U. S. Post Office has issued stamps which bear her likeness. She was listed as No. 14 in Flying Magazine’s 2013 list of “51 Heroes of Aviation,” and she was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2006 – the highest honor in American aviation.  In the end, Bessie Coleman did indeed "amount to something."

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[1] Texas Roots (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.bessiecoleman.com/Other%20Pages/texas.html

[2] American Experience. Fly Girls; Bessie Coleman (1892-1926). (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.notablebiographies.com/Co-Da/Coleman-Bessie.html

[3] Bessie Coleman; Pilot; (1892-1926). The Biography.com website (2015). Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/people/bessie-coleman-36928

[4] Bessie Coleman (Wikipedia).(2015, February 26) Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bessie_Coleman&oldid=648941490