How did bessie coleman die
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Bessie Coleman
The skies had never seen a pilot like Bessie Coleman before. She was the first African-American woman to obtain an international pilot’s license, soaring to new heights that Black people in the United States had never reached before. But as a Black woman in the 1920s, she faced many obstacles because of her race and gender. She would say that “the air is the only place free from prejudice.”
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Coleman was born in Atlanta, Texas, on January 26, 1892, the 10th of 13 children. Her mother was African American, and her father’s ancestors were Black and Choctaw, a Native American people; they were both sharecroppers who picked cotton for a landowner.
When she was young, her family moved to Waxahachie, Texas, where she attended segregated schools (meaning Black children went to separate schools, which usually weren’t as good as schools for white children). She enrolled in Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University in 1910 but had to drop out because she didn’t have the money to pay for sch
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Bessie Coleman
By Julia Lauria-Blum (as first appeared in Metropolitan Airport News, June 7, 2019)
Bessie Coleman, Curtiss Field, L.I. 1922 (Cradle of Aviation Museum)
Elizabeth “Bessie” Coleman was born on January 26, 1892 in Atlanta, Texas. As one of 13 children born to sharecroppers, George and Susan Coleman, who were of Native American and African-American descent, Bessie worked as a child in the cotton fields, vowing to one day ‘’amount to something’’.
Elizabeth “Bessie” Coleman (Cradle of Aviation Museum)
At the age of six, Coleman began attending school in Waxahachie, Texas in a one-room, segregated schoolhouse where she completed all eight grades. At age 12, Bessie was accepted into the Missionary Baptist Church School on a scholarship. Yearning to further her education she worked and saved her money and enrolled at Langston University in Oklahoma where she completed one term before running out of funds and returning home to Texas.
In 1915 at age 23, Bessie moved to Chicago to live with her older brother. She became a beautician and worked as a manicurist
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Bessie Coleman
Early Life
Coleman was born in Atlanta, Texas, to Susan and George Coleman. George, who had Native American grandparents, would eventually return to the Cherokee Nation, leaving Susan to raise Coleman and her siblings alone.
In 1920, 27-year old Bessie Coleman, now living in segregated Chicago, was at a personal crossroads. She sought a life beyond her job of manicurist in beauty salons. When her brother, a World War I veteran, taunted her about her future with stories of French women flyers she replied, “That’s it… You just called it for me!” She was determined to become a pilot. But in the United States, Black men were not welcome in aviation, let alone Black women.
Unfazed after white pilots refused to give her instruction, Coleman sought advice from Robert Abbot, publisher of the influential Black newspaper the Chicago Defender, and a constant advocate for the inclusion of Black people in American society. Sensing her commitment, and the resulting publicity if she succeeded, Abbot advised Coleman to learn French and seek training in France where Black
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