Bessie Coleman, American Aviator
Bessie Coleman with one of her (unidentified) financial backers. Such patrons were often essential to a barnstormer’s career. Elizabeth (Bessie) Coleman (January 26, 1892 - April 30, 1926) was an African-American civil aviator. She could not gain admission to American flight schools because she was black and a woman. Robert Abbott, founder and publisher of the Chicago Defender, encouraged her to study abroad. She took a French-language class at the Berlitz school, and traveled to Paris in 1920, to earn her pilot license. In 1921, she became the first woman of African-American descent to earn an international aviation license (the first American of any gender or ethnicity to do so). She became a barnstorming stunt flyer and was known as Queen Bess. She quickly gained a reputation as a skilled and daring pilot who would stop at nothing to complete a difficult stunt. On April 30, 1926, William Wills, her mechanic and publicity agent, was flying the plane with Coleman in the other seat. She had not 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. Ten minutes into the flight, the plane unexpectedly dived, then spun around. She was thrown from the plane at 2,000 feet and died instantly when she hit the ground. She was 34 years old. No photographer credited, undated.
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Photo credit: © Science History Images / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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