The Biography of Bessie Coleman

Bessie Coleman was born in 1892 in Atlanta, Texas (1). She was one of 13 siblings, and grew up as a sharecropper picking cotton (2). She left for Chicago in 1915 with the Great Migration (3). During the Great Migration between 1910 and 1970, 6 million Black people left the Southern United States for cities in the Northern United States in search of better lives (4). Bessie Coleman was one of these migrants.

In 1915, she attended a beauty school and became a manicurist (5). A turning point in her life came in 1919, when her brother, who had recently returned from Army service in France, teased her about how women in America had fewer opportunities compared to women in France (6). Indeed, as Bessie Coleman learned more about the state of affairs in that day, she would realize that women in France had more opportunity available to them than women in the United States (7). In addition, Bessie Coleman faced the challenge of being Black in America as well (8), a challenge which was compounded by the selectivity of the then-small aviation community. One figure in particular inspired her – Eugene Bullard, an early African American military pilot (9). Bullard flew for the French military despite having been born in Georgia (10). Seeing his example, Coleman set out to replicate his achievement.

Bessie Coleman became fascinated with flight, and began searching for opportunities to learn to fly. A fortunate break came when Robert Abbott, a newspaper publisher in Chicago, advised her to pursue aviation school in France (11). At the time, due to discrimination against women and Black Americans, there was a shortage of opportunity for her to learn how to fly. There was no interest in instructing her or educating her in flying aircraft. Bessie Coleman had no fortune finding an interested flight school in America due to her status as an African American woman (12). At the time, no flight school in the United States would train African Americans (13). There remained a possibility, however, of Coleman becoming a pilot in France. It was a distant option, but an option.

Bessie Coleman set out to learn French to apply to flight school (14). Such was her determination to achieve the goal of learning aircraft control. Eugene Bullard had been able to fly in France thanks to the more permissive culture in France. This opportunity was attractive to Coleman for the same reason she had joined the Great Migration – freedom from oppressive and restrictive racial rules.

Abbott was generous to Coleman in supporting her financially (15). Thanks to this assistance, as well as the assistance of Jesse Binga, another well-heeled Black supporter, Coleman was able to use this support to pursue her career (16).

Coleman traveled to France. To her good fortune, she was accepted to flight school (17). She attended the Caudron Brothers School of Aviation, where she learned to fly in a Nieuport 82 dual-controlled training aircraft (18). To add to the challenge of becoming a proficient pilot in a flimsy aircraft, the flight school was nine miles away, and Coleman had to walk this distance to school and back each day (19). The physical challenges experienced by people in the first half of the twentieth century remain essentially unimaginable to residents of modern developed countries.

In 1921, Bessie Coleman achieved the major life mark of receiving her international pilots’ license in France (20). This was a major point in her life, because at this time it was not common for women to fly at all. Aviation was almost strictly a male pursuit, and for a woman to seek to fly was unusual. Aviation was also extraordinarily dangerous. Flying at that time was still a young pursuit – at the time of Bessie Coleman earning her pilots’ license the entire discipline was less than two decades old. To fly required uncommon physical bravery.

After Coleman departed France, she practiced aerobatic trick flying in Germany before returning to the United States (21). When she returned back to the United States, she was adored by the newspapers, and was the guest of honor at a musical theater show (22).

In the following year, Bessie Coleman performed the first public flight by an African American woman in a Curtiss JN-4D Jenny (23) (24). In 1923, Bessie Coleman traveled to California, drawn by an advertising opportunity from Coast Tire and Rubber of Oakland (25). During this time, she cultivated her barnstorming act. Barnstorming was a challenging and dangerous discipline which involved performance flying in front of paying audiences in rural settings. One of the stunts which Bessie Coleman learned to perform was parachute jumping (26).

Coleman had a close call with disaster in 1923. While flying, her aircraft crashed to the ground. She was hospitalized for three months (27). This was the first encounter with the reality that characterized flying in those days. Risk was omnipresent. The entire discipline was dangerous. Without modern aircraft and safety standards, and with the risk-taking culture of early aviation, danger was a constant presence.

Coleman put on a barnstorming performance in Houston which involved parachute jumping (28). It was an early introduction to some of the stunts which would characterize her later act.

Coleman’s shining star was put out by tragedy. While on a flight to search for a landing zone for a parachute jump the following day, the aircraft overturned at a height of 3,500 feet (29). Coleman fell from the plane, and died when she hit the ground (30). She had not been wearing a seat belt (31) After the crash, it was found that a loose wrench had blocked normal function of the engine, throwing the aircraft out of its flight path (32). Conspiracy theories suggesting she was assassinated persisted (33) due to her celebrity and sudden death.

The racial problems present at the time were made clear when the death of Coleman’s white navigator was better covered than hers was by the popular press, despite her being better known (34). Her death went unreported in the New York Times (35). Coleman was, however, lamented and memorialized by the Black press (36). The adoration which Coleman had received upon the reception of her pilot’s license was not replicated at the time of her death.

Bessie Coleman inspired others to follow her example and take to the skies, especially people of color who sought aviation as a route to challenge systemic oppression of Black people in America during the early years of the twentieth century. One of the pilots inspired by Coleman’s legacy included Merryl Tengesdal, the only Black woman ever to fly the U-2 spy aircraft (37). Coleman’s persistence and determination to achieve what at the time of her life was seen as an insurmountable goal is one of the major causes of her enduring celebrity.

Bessie Coleman did have durable memorials made to her. In 1995, the United States Postal Service created a stamp in her image (38). In 2023, a quarter was minted in her memory (39). In 2006, Bessie Coleman was enshrined in the national Aviation Hall of Fame (40).

Bessie Coleman once said, “The air is the only place free from prejudice. You’ve never lived until you’ve flown” (41).

Works Cited:

7, 11, 18, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33:

Cochrane, Dorothy. “Celebrating the Centennial of Bessie Coleman as the First Licensed African American Woman Pilot.” National Air and Space Museum, 15 June 2021, https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/celebrating-centennial-bessie-coleman. Accessed 2 April 2024.

6, 35:

Slotnik, Daniel E. “Overlooked No More: Bessie Coleman, Pioneering African American Aviatrix.” The New York Times, 11 December 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/obituaries/bessie-coleman-overlooked.html. Accessed 2 April 2024.

39:

“Bessie Coleman Quarter.” United States Mint, https://www.usmint.gov/coins/coin-medal-programs/american-women-quarters/bessie-coleman. Accessed 2 April 2024.

8, 9, 13, 15, 16, 21, 22, 38, 40:

“Black History Month – Bessie Coleman, the African-American aviator who wanted to ‘give a little color to the sky’.” Consulate General of France in New York, https://newyork.consulfrance.org/nouvelle-traduction-black-history-month-bessie-coleman-l-aviatrice-afro. Accessed 2 April 2024.

10:

“Eugene J. Bullard.” National Air and Space Museum, 12 October 2010, https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/eugene-j-bullard. Accessed 2 April 2024.

4:

History.Com Editors. “The Great Migration.” History, 15 December 2023, https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/great-migration. Accessed 2 April 2024.

2, 3, 19, 34, 36, 37, 41:

Kindy, David. “For Pilot Bessie Coleman, Every No Got Her Closer To a Yes.” Smithsonian Magazine, 21 January 2022, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/for-pilot-bessie-coleman-every-no-got-her-closer-to-yes-180979416/. Accessed 2 April 2024.

1, 5, 12, 14, 17, 20, 23:

Alexander, Kerri Lee. “Bessie Coleman.” National Women’s History Museum, 2018, https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/bessie-coleman. Accessed 2 April 2024.