Have you ever heard of Bessie Coleman?

Well, if you haven’t, she was the first African American woman pilot and that is an amazing accomplishment, especially for the time that she was living in. She was born January 26, 1892, to Susan and George Coleman and had twelve brothers and sisters. She grew up poor helping her parents do small jobs until she saved up enough money to attend college. She only attended one semester before she had to drop out because she didn’t have money. She had heard about flying airplanes from her brothers who served in World War I, and she was inspired to become a pilot. She had applied for schools in the US, but she didn’t get accepted because she was African American and a woman. She found that if she moved to France that she would have a better chance of being accepted, so she studied French so that she could write her applications to flight schools. Coleman was accepted to Caudron Brothers’ School of Aviation and received her international pilot’s license on June 15, 1921. She was most known for doing “loop-the-loops” and making “8” in the sky. She had become famous in the US and Europe, and in 1922 she had become the first African American woman to perform a public flight. Coleman was also an advocate against racism and stood her ground to stand up for what she believed in. Unfortunately, on April 30, 1926, she died because a loose wrench got stuck in the engine of the aircraft and she was not wearing a seatbelt. She fell out of the airplane to her death and it devastated a lot of people. She is still remembered after her death because in 1931, the Challenger Pilots’ Association started a tradition to fly over her grave every year, and in 1995 they remembered all of her accomplishments with a stamp. She is an inspiration to many people, especially black girls, that want to be pilots when they get older. Bessie Coleman is and will forever be an icon in history and I really admire everything that she has done for the black community.