"Queen/Brave" Bessie Coleman – American History's first African American and Native American Pilot

"The Air is the only place free from prejudices." - Bessie Coleman

Known as "Queen Bess, Brave Bessie," and "The Only Race Aviatrix in the World," Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman was the world's first Black licensed pilot. She was later viewed as paving the way for future African American accomplishments in aviation and the U.S. Air Force.

Born in 1892 in Atlanta, Texas to Black and Native American parents, Coleman grew up in an exceptionally large and financially poor family with thirteen siblings.

From picking cotton to ironing to help her mother make ends meet, Coleman's impoverished life led her to Chicago where she tried manicuring and working at a Barber Shop.

Coleman had a lifelong dream to fly an airplane — something almost any woman let alone a man would do. Flying was her freedom from racism, poverty, and pain.

When she was in Chicago, she stayed with her brother. Living in the windy city fed her passion and fantasy for flying, listening to the stories of pilots returning from their adventures during World War I.

Her brother John teased her because French women were allowed to learn how to fly airplanes and, in the United States, Coleman could not. As she applied to American flight schools, Coleman was continuously rejected from countless flight schools throughout the U.S. Because of her race and gender, no American School would accept her. To her brother and all the schools who said no, her response was, "I refused to take no for an answer."

In 1920 her opportunity came when she took the opportunity to go to France to learn how to fly. She studied for ten months in France and earned a license on June 15, 1921, from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.

Coleman distinguished herself as the first Black person in the world to become a licensed pilot. After receiving additional training from a French ace pilot near Paris, Coleman came back to the United States.

She returned to the United States in 1921. Her second dream in addition to making flying her career was to open a flying school for Black women. In 1922 she went back to Europe taking lessons from the chief pilot for the Fokker Aircraft Company in Germany.

Coleman became an instant celebrity who wowed thousands watching her flying tricks in the air as "Queen Bess" flying the Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplanes to stunt in shows around the United States. She was labeled "the world's greatest woman flier."

On April 30, 1926, Coleman was in Jacksonville, Fla., preparing to fly in an airshow there using a newly purchased Curtiss biplane. With her mechanic and publicity agent, William Wills, flying the plane, Coleman was in the other seat scouting the terrain for a parachute jump the next day — with her seatbelt unfastened. About 10 minutes into the flight, the plane began to spin rather than pull out of an intended dive. Coleman was thrown from the plane from a height of about five hundred feet and died instantly upon impact.

Coleman's funeral in Jacksonville on May 2, 1926, was attended by more than 5,000 mourners. Three days later her body arrived in Orlando, Fla., where thousands more attended a funeral. Her final journey took her back to Chicago, where more than 10,000 people filed past her coffin to pay final respects.

William J. Powell penned in his 1934 book, "Black Wings," "Because of Bessie Coleman, we have overcome that which was much worse than a racial barrier. We have overcome the barriers within ourselves and dared to dream."