Bessie Coleman -- USA

Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman was an American civil aviator, she was the first African American female pilot and the first to hold an international pilots licence.

Coleman was born on 26 January 1892 in Atlanta Texas, the tenth of thirteen children to sharecroppers George and Susan Coleman.  She started school at age six and had to walk four miles each day to her all black, one-room school. Despite sometimes lacking chalk and pencils, Coleman was an excellent student, and was outstanding at maths. 

George Coleman became fed up with the racial barriers that existed in Texas so left his family returned to Oklahoma to find better opportunities.  When she turned eighteen, Coleman took all of her savings and enrolled in the Coloured Agricultural and Normal University (Langston University) in Langston Oklahoma, but she soon ran out of money and was forced to return home.  Coleman knew there was no future for her in her hometown, so she went to live with two of her brothers in Chicago while she looked for a job.

In 1915, at twenty three, she got a job at the White Sox Barber Shop as a manicurist, while there, she heard tales of the world from pilots who were returning home from World War I. They described flying in the war, and Coleman began thinking of becoming a pilot.  Her brother teased saying that French women were better than African American women because they were already pilots.  

Flight schools would not accept any black people and black aviators wouldn’t train her either, but Robert S. Abbott, the black founder and publisher of the Chicago Defender, encouraged her to study abroad.  Coleman received financial backing from Jesse Binga an African American banker and the Chicago Defender, which exploited her beauty and flamboyant personality to promote the newspaper, and her cause.

Coleman took French lessons, and then travelled to Paris on 20 November 1920, she learned to fly in a Nieuport Type 82 biplane, and on 15 June 1921 Coleman became the first African-American woman to earn an international aviation licence from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, and the first African American woman in the world to receive a pilot's licence.   Determined to improve her skills, Coleman spent the next two months taking lessons from an ace pilot, and in September 1921 sailed for New York, on her return to the United States she became a media sensation.

Coleman realised that to make a living as a civilian aviator, she would need to become a stunt flier and perform for paying audiences.  But to succeed in this highly competitive arena, she would need advanced lessons, and a more extensive repertoire, in February 1922 she again sailed for Europe.  She spent the next two months in France completing an advanced course in aviation, then left for the Netherlands to meet with Anthony Fokker, one of the world's most distinguished aircraft designers. She visited the Fokker Corporation in Germany, and received additional training from one of the company's chief pilots. 

She returned to the United States and launched her career in exhibition flying, she was highly popular for the next five years. She primarily flew Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplanes and army surplus aircraft left over from the war.  In Chicago Colman delivered a stunning demonstration of daredevil manoeuvres including figure eights, loops, and near-ground dips to a large and enthusiastic crowd at the Checkerboard Airdrome (Chicago Midway Airport).  Coleman would often be criticised by the press for her opportunistic nature and the flamboyant style she brought to her exhibition flying.  She also gained a reputation as a skilled and daring pilot who would stop at nothing to complete difficult stunts.  On 22 February 1923 in Los Angeles, California, she broke a leg and three ribs when her plane stalled and crashed.

Bessie accepted a role in a feature length film entitled Shadow and Sunshine, to be financed by the African American Seminole Film Producing Company.  Believing the publicity would advance her career and provide capital to establish a flying school.  But on learning that the first scene required her to appear in tattered clothes, with a walking stick and a pack on her back, she refused to proceed. Opportunist though she was about her career, she was never an opportunist about race and had no intention of perpetuating the derogatory image of blacks.  Coleman would not live long enough to establish a school for young black aviators, but her pioneering achievements served as an inspiration for a generation of African American men and women. 

On April 30, 1926, Coleman was in Jacksonville Florida, with a recently purchased a Curtiss JN-4 (Jenny) in preparation for an air show,  her friends and family considered the aircraft to be unsafe and implored her not to fly it.  Her mechanic and publicity agent William Wills, flew the plane with Coleman in the passenger seat, Coleman didn’t put on her seatbelt because she was planning a parachute jump for the next day and wanted to look over the cockpit sill to examine the terrain.  About ten minutes into the flight, the plane could not pull out of a dive, instead it just spun.  Coleman was thrown from the plane at 500 ft and died instantly when she hit the ground.  William Wills was unable to gain control of the plane and it plummeted to the ground, bursting into flames, killing Wills on impact.  Although the wreckage of the plane was badly burned, it was later discovered that a wrench used in servicing the engine, had slid into the gearbox and jammed it, Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman died on 30 April 1926 aged thirty-four. 

Her funerals were held in Jacksonville and Orlando Florida, and attended by more than 8,000 mourners, her final journey on 5 May was to Chicago's Pilgrim Baptist Church. An estimated 10,000 people filed past the coffin all night and day, she was buried in the Lincoln Cemetery.

Coleman's impact on aviation history, and particularly African Americans in aviation, quickly became apparent following her death.  In 1927, Bessie Coleman Aero Clubs sprang up throughout the country.  On Labour Day, 1931, these clubs sponsored the first African American Air Show, which attracted around 15,000 spectators.  Later that year, a group of African American pilots established an annual flyover of Coleman's grave at Lincoln Cemetery Chicago. 

Coleman's name also began appearing on buildings in Harlem, and in 1989, First Flight Society inducted Coleman into their shrine that honours individuals and groups, that have achieved significant "firsts" in aviation's development.  A second-floor conference room at the Federal Aviation Administration, Washington DC, is named after Coleman.  

In 1990, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley renamed Old Mannheim Road at O'Hare International Airport, to Bessie Coleman Drive and in 1992, he proclaimed 2 May  "Bessie Coleman Day in Chicago.  In 1995, she was honoured with her image on a U.S. postage stamp, and was inducted into the Women in Aviation Hall of Fame.  In 1999 she was designated a Women's History Month Honouree by the National Women's History Project.  

In November 2000, Coleman was inducted in The Texas Aviation Hall of Fame.  She is the subject of Barnstormer, a musical that debuted 20 October 2008 at the National Alliance for Musical Theatre Festival in New York.  In 2004, a small park in the Southside Chicago Hyde Park neighbourhood was named "Bessie Coleman Park."  And, the Bessie Coleman park council was formed in 2005.  A Street in Gateway Gardens, Frankfurt am Main, Germany was named after her in 2007.