by Dick Mac
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Bessie Coleman was born in Atlanta, Texas, on January 26, 1892, and died in a plane crash, at Jacksonville, Florida, on April 30, 1926. She was 34.
Coleman's parents were sharecropper in Texas. She learned to read and write, and won a scholarship to the Missionary Baptist Church School. She went on to complete one year at the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University in Langston, Oklahoma.
While living in Chicago in her early twenties, she was determined to become a pilot. No American flight school accepted women or people of color, so with the philanthropic assistance of banker Jesse Binga and publisher Robert Abbott she enrolled in language school, learned French, moved to Paris, enrolled in flight school and became the world's first Black licensed pilot.
With no commercial air travel, and little opportunity to earn money as a civilian aviator, she became a stunt pilot, earning money with barnstorming air shows.
She dreamed of opening a flight school for young, black aviators. Unfortunately, her dream was not realized as she died in an accident during the test run of a flight show in Jacksonville, Florida.
Coleman was not an opportunist, she was a dreamer, and she dreamed big. She passed on opportunities that would have afforded her more financial security, but her principals were more important to her than profit.
She was a brave woman who overcame innumerable hurdles in pursuit of her dream. She embodies the American spirit and for that is an American hero.
Watch this: https://youtu.be/jYYy-dT4498
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