Connie Plantz - The Life of Bessie Coleman. First African-American Woman Pilot

Bessie Colemans Soaring Achievement

In the early 1900s, Bessie Coleman dreamed of flyingbut racial bigotry and gender bias threatened to keep her grounded. Denied entrance to flight training school in the United States, Coleman traveled to Europe. She returned, triumphant, as the worlds first African-American woman with a pilots license.

Author Connie Plantz captures all the tension and excitement of Bessie Colemans soaring achievements. Determined to open a flight school for other African Americans, Brave Bessie raised funds as a stunt pilot, thrilling crowds of spectators with her aerial tricks. Colemans life ended in a tragic accident, but not before her dream of flight made aviation history.

A well-researched look at the short but eventful life...

Plantz captures all the drama, pride and hardship...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Connie Plantz is a reading specialist who has taught students from elementary school to college, and has been the education consultant for numerous textbooks.

Bessie Coleman

Flying at sixty miles an hour in a borrowed biplane, Bessie Coleman gradually slowed her speed. The plane began to dive. Dangerously close to the earth, she pulled the throttle in to give the engine more power. Then, effortlessly, she flew back toward the clouds. It was June 19, 1925. Thousands of spectators at the old speedway auto racetrack in Houston, Texas, cheered and stomped their feet.

Pilot Lincoln Beachey had complained in 1913, I am convinced that the only thing that draws crowds to see me is the morbid desire to see something happen. They call me the Master Birdman, but they pay to see me die. In 1925 nothing had changed. Newspapers were full of black-and-white pictures of crumpled crashed planes. Undertakers chased Hubert Julian, an African-American daredevil pilot who desired fame so much that he performed stunts no one else would try. His outlandish maneuvers caused the morticians to believe he would soon crash. They went to his shows and begged him for the rights to display his body after he died. Later, unemployed World War I pilots bought used planes to dazzle audiences with outrageous routines that appeared life-threatening. Amateur stunt performers danced the Charleston on the upper wings of biplanes or dangled from rope ladders.

These stunt pilots went from one county fair to the next, entertaining crowds with their dangerous maneuvers. Some people called them barnstormers. This was a term used for traveling performers who brought their shows to rural areas. Others called the aviators flying fools because of their recklessness. A 1921 New York Times editorial illustrated the absurdity of these daredevil tricks. It stated that so many pilots had died in crashes that no one cared anymore. Only their relatives and friends showed any emotion when reports of pilots deaths were printed in the newspaper.

Bessie Coleman was far from being a flying fool. She was an African-American woman with a goal. An article in the Houston Post-Dispatch on June 18, 1925, reported that Coleman was attracting attention all over the country for her efforts to interest African Americans in aviation. Her goal, she told them, was to get African Americans flying. Coleman stressed that African Americans were the only group of people in the world who had not been involved in aviation. The Houston Post-Dispatch was written and read by whites. Usually, Colemans exhibitions were covered only in newspapers read by blacks. The fact that this paper reported Colemans achievements indicated that she had become an entertainer of interest to all audiences.

Bessie Coleman chose June 19 for this exhibition of flying because it was an important date in African-American history: Sixty years earlier, on June 19, 1865, Union troops came to Galveston, Texas, and announced the end of the Civil War. The slaves there learned that they were all free. Coleman, herself a native Texan, used the annual celebration, called Juneteenth, to interest her people in aviation. Every loop-the-loop, barrel roll, and figure eight showed the audience on the ground that an African American could fly a plane. As Bessie Coleman zipped through the sky, her message was as clear as skywriting: Dont be afraid to take risks. Fly!

As she prepared for her last stunt of the show, Coleman checked the windsock attached to a fence post. Seeing the white fabric blowing westward, she knew the wind was coming from the east. Coleman turned her plane to face into the wind. Then, to give the audience one more thrill, she stopped her loud buzzing engine. In complete silence, she glided the plane to the ground. The forward motion dragged the planes tail across the rough field. A brass band played a jazzy tune as Coleman coasted to a stop. It was a perfect landing.

Coleman whipped off her goggles and loosened her leather helmet strap. She climbed out of the cockpit onto the lower wing, then jumped to the ground. Her petite figure was fashionably dressed in a tailored flying suit and a leather French officers jacket. Coleman confidently smiled and waved at the crowd.

The spectators whistled and hooted. They pushed onto the field toward five planes waiting to give them rides. About seventy-five people, mostly women, lined up. They were eager for a turn to climb aboard for a birds-eye view of Houston.

The pilots had two problems. First, they didnt have enough planes to carry everyone who wanted to go. Second, they could not fly as fast as the passengers wanted. But despite these problems, the Houston Informer, a black newspaper, called this historical event the biggest thrill of the eveningand of a lifetime, for that matter. It was the first time African Americans in the South had been given the opportunity to fly.

On June 19, 1925, Bessie Coleman accomplished her goal. She demonstrated that an African American could pilot an airplane.

On January 26, 1892, Bessie Coleman was born to Susan and George Coleman. The Colemans were both African American. George was also part Choctaw Indian. With Bessies birth, there were now six children living in the familys one-room cabin. The Colemans lived on a dirt road in Atlanta, Texas.

Susan Coleman wanted her daughter to grow up experiencing lots of opportunities. But she knew Bessie would have an uphill struggle. The year before Bessies birth, one hundred African Americans in the United States had died by lynching, murdered by lawless mobs. Women faced discrimination, too. They were not allowed to vote and were considered second-class citizens. Society expected women to stay home to cook, clean, and care for children.

Bessies older brother John kept her safe, clean, and out of mischief. Every night after Susan Coleman lit the oil lamp, Bessie climbed onto her brothers lap to listen to him read passages from the Bible. Bessie was the baby of the family for two years. Then another daughter, Elois, was born.

On October 15, 1894, George Coleman bought property in Waxahachie, Texas. According to the town records, he spent his savings on one quarter of an acre, more or less, on Mustang Creek. He paid $25 for this property.

The Colemans moved from the small town of Atlanta to Waxahachie. This city sat in the middle of Ellis County, the largest cotton-producing county in the nation. Cotton yards, cotton warehouses, and cotton mills hummed with activity. The Colemans were not the only newcomers. As the countys cotton production increasedfrom 389 bales of cotton in 1860 to 106,384 bales in 1910so did its population. Almost three thousand people moved into Ellis County from 1880 to 1900 to work.