INTRO Chicago The World’s Flying Capital
Chicago Whip, July 15. 1922
Girl Flyer Given German License
NEW YORK, July 15.—Bessie Coleman, of Chicago, and the only aviatrix of her race in the world, has received first pilots’ license to fly a machine anywhere in Germany. Miss Coleman also holds a brevet license in France and has made several flights in London and Holland. It is reported that she will arrive in Chicago soon and open a pilots’ school. She refused an offer to teach in Moscow.
Daily Herald, August 25, 1922
Women Succeed as Aviators
The United States has had many women aviators. Katherine Stinson was the fist of her sex to fty in this country, being a contemporary of Lincoln Beachey and many other of the early early aviators who learned at the Wright field, near Dayton. Now Chicago has produced our first negro girl aviator in Bessie Coleman, who is abroad at present receiving additional training in France, Holland and England, where she has given many demonstrations of skill.
New York Age, August 26, 1922
COLORED AVIATRIX TO FLY FOR 369TH REG’T.
Miss Bessie Coleman has returned from Europe where she had special training in aviation under the most efficient instructors. Her work has included flying huge German seaplanes and she has succeeded in flying the largest plane ever flown by any woman of any race—a 220 horsepower Benz motor, at Berlin Germany. She brings credentials from the Duetsche Luft Reederei (German: Aero Club) of Berlin.
She plans to open an aviation school in this country and is awaiting, from Amsterdam Holland, a dozen Fokker planes. One of her Fokkers has already been delivered and she will make her first American exhibition fight at Curtis Flying Field, Garden City, Long Island. Sunday, August 27, at 3:30 p. m. under auspices of the 369th New York Infantry.
There will be eight other sensational fights by America’s leading Aces, and 15th Infants band concerts during flying. Tickets on sale at this office.
Direction to field: Take Long Island Railroad from Pennsylvania Station to Garden City or Mineola, sightseeing busses to field. Front Brooklyn, take train at Flathust Avenue.
New York Times, August 26, 1922
Bessie Coleman to Give Exhibition for Fifteenth Regiment.
Bessie Coleman, negro woman flyer, will give an exhibition this afternoon at Curtiss Field, near Mineola, L. I., for the Fifteenth Regiment, which is expected to turn out in full strength. Miss Coleman returned from Europe a fortnight ago and, according to German newspapers. In June she flew, without a lesson, the largest plane ever piloted by a woman. She took a 400 horse-power machine over Berlin. She visited the Fokker plant in the Netherlands and successfully flew manufactured by the the various typesDutch aircraft engineer. Another feat ascribed to her was piloting a Dornier seaplane, which requires unusual aeronautical skill.
Miss Coleman, who is 24 years old, is a native of Texas. Just before the war
closed she went to France with a Red Cross unit, which was brigaded with a French flying unit. She persuaded the French officers to instruct her and now possesses a pilot’s license issued by the Fédération Aeronautique Internationale.
New York Daily News, September 5, 1922
A NEWCOMER.–Holiday crowds at Curtiss Field, Garden City, L. I., yesterday saw Bessie Coleman, first colored aviatrix, give daring flying exhibition. Capt. E. C. MeVey presenting bouquet to Miss Coleman at finish of flight.
The Tampa Daily Times, April 30, 1926
Jacksonville, April 30.—William D. Wills, 24, Dallas, Texas, and Bessie Coleman, said to have been the only negro aviatrix in the world, lost their lives in an airplane mishap west of the city this morning.
The woman fell out of the plane when it got out of control at 2,000 feet and overturned, and Wills was killed when the plane crashed on the ground. The machine struck a tree just before landing.
Wills’ body was cremated when a spectator lighted a match near the wreck of the plane. Gasoline fumes ignited and before the body could be extricated, the machine was a raring mass of flames.
Wills and the negro woman went into Paxton field this morning, accompanied by John T. Betsch of the Jacksonville Negro Welfare league. Betsch was handling publicity for an exhibition the negress was to have given at the fairgrounds here tomorrow.
The plane took off with Wills in front and the negress in the cockpit. It flew to an altitude of about 3,500 feet and circled around. Then persons watching, saw it take a nose dive. It dropped about 1,500 feet and then overturned.
Police were preparing to remove the body of wills from the plane when Betsch struck a match to light a cigaret. Gasoline fumes caught fire and two explosions of the gas tanks folowed.
Police detained Betsch.
The Coleman woman came here Tuesday to prepare for the exhibition. She lived in Chicago. The negro woman was not strapped in the plane when it took off, authorities said.
The Daily Worker, May 2, 1926
Negro Aviatrix Killed.
Jacksonville, Fla., April 30-William D. Wills, 24-year old white man, Dallas, Texas, and Bessie Coleman, 26, of Chicago, said to be the only Negro aviatrix in the world, were killed this morning in an exhibition airplane flight west of the city when their plane took a 3,500 foot nose dive to the ground.
Chicago Tribune, May 8, 1980
Chicago Tribune, November 12, 1986
Contest Cites First Black Woman Pilot
Marion Coleman, president of the Bessie Coleman Foundation, announced an essay contest to honor Bessie Coleman. the first black woman in the United States to learn how to fly.
The contest is open to Chicago-area students in grades seven through 10 who must write a two-10 three-page essay on “Why the United States Post Office should honor Bessie Coleman by putting her picture on a possage stamp.”
Deadline for entries is Dec. 31.
South Florida Sun-Sentinel, April 9, 1995
‘Black Heritage’ Series Salutes Woman Aviator
Richard Carr
Stamp Columnist
Bessie Coleman could not become a pilot in the United States because she was black and a woman.
American aviation schools simply denied her admission.
As a result, the first African American woman pilot – who will appear on the 1995 stamp in the “Black Heri-tage” series—had to earn her wings and pilot’s license in Europe.
The Coleman commemorative is the 18th “Black Heritage” stamp since the series began in 1978. It will be issued on April 27 in Chicago.
Bob Harris, a Postal Service vice president, and Marion Coleman, Bessie Coleman’s niece, will take part in the dedication in Southwest Airlines hangar at Midway Airport.
“Throughout my postal career, I saw the Black Heritage stamps and thought my Aunt Bessie should be honored. said Marion Coleman, a retired postal employee.
“And I’m so glad she is being honored in this year’s stamp program.
Aunt Bessie’s dream,” she added, “was to learn aviation and then teach oth-ers. Most African Americans at the time didn’t even consider learning how to fly. Even though she faced obsta-cles, she didn’t let anything stop her. You people today can learn from her determination. Her example teaches them they can accomplish whatever they dream of doing in life—no matter what the challenges are.”
Bessie Coleman was born in a one-room cabin and raised for part of her life in a single-parent family. Through reading she discovered the world of aviation. But American flight schools would not admit her.
Robert S. Abbot, founder and editor of the Chicago Defender, urged Coleman to pursue her dream in Europe. She resolved to do so.
Coleman studied French at night and worked days as a manicurist to earn money. On June 15, 1921, she earned an international pilot’s license issued in Paris by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, granting her the right to fly anywhere in the world.
She returned to the United States later that year with the ambition of opening an aviation school.
Known as “Brave Bessie” and “Queen Bess,” Coleman enjoyed national popularity at air shows for her acrobatics and high-flying stunts. She was particularly renowned for her pinpoint landings and “figure 8s.”
She never opened a school, but wherever she traveled she lectured on aviation and encouraged African Ameri cans and women to learn how to fly.
On April 30, 1926, during practice sessions for an upcoming exhibition, Coleman was killed in a crash caused by the jammed controls aboard a plane piloted by her mechanic.
Today, a library and street leading to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport are named in her honor.
Since 1940, when educator Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) became the first black person to appear on a U.S. stamp, more than 70 definitives and commemoratives have featured or honored African Americans.
Collectors desiring first-day cancellations should buy the Coleman stamps at a post office and place them on seif-addressed envelopes. These should be mailed in a larger envelope to: “Customer-Affixed Stamps, Bessie Coleman Stamp,” Postmaster, Chicago, III. 60607-9991. Requests should be postmarked by May 26.
Chicago Tribune, March 1, 1990
The (city) council also unanimously approved the changing the name of old Mannheim Road on O’Hare Airport property to Bessie Coleman Drive. Coleman, a Chicagoan, was the first black pilot and opened the first flying school for blacks in this country.
Chicago Tribune, November 28, 2021
By Ron Grossman
Bessie Coleman came back from France a century ago, having realized her dream. A manicurist in a Chicago barbershop, she returned from that trip as the first African American woman airplane pilot and possessed by a mission to share what she’d learned: “In the air there is no prejudice,” she said.
Considering the racial hatreds at ground level, what she accomplished in the few years she was fated to live is barely believable. Bessie Coleman Drive at O’Hare International Airport is named in her honor. Yet the true story of her life was long elusive because she rarely gave an interview without mixing fact and fancy, as she chose to be seen on a given day.
A photo of Bessie Coleman, one of the first Black woman aviators, is on her gravestone at Lincoln Cemetery in the Chicago area.
She told a New York Times reporter that she learned to fly as a Red Cross nurse in World War I. She made public appearances in the long leather coat and goggles perched atop a leather helmet that the Canadian air force wore.
In fact, it was her brothers who were the veterans of World War I. So here is Bessie’s story as biographer Doris Rich reconstructed it in “Queen Bess” — for so was Coleman regarded by her legion of fans.
She was born in 1892, the oldest of Susan Coleman’s children. Because Bessie’s father deserted the family, her mother worked as a cook and housekeeper for a white family in Waxahachie, Texas. Bessie took charge of her siblings, and her mother, though illiterate, borrowed books from a wagon-born library that toured the countryside.
Among those Bessie read to her sisters at bedtime was “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Written by an abolitionist, it was popular among progressive whites, but less so among Blacks because it depicted docile slaves.
“I’ll never be a Topsy or an Uncle Tom,” Bessie said after closing the cover. Years later, Bessie announced her ambition “to make Uncle Tom’s cabin into a hanger for a flying school.”
The 1921 pilot license for Bessie Coleman which was on display at the DuSable Museum of African American History in 2011.
By 1919, she was living with two brothers who’d moved to Chicago and seen France as members of the 370th Regiment of the Illinois National Guard. She wanted to do something with her life, but didn’t know what until John Coleman inadvertently gave her a clue.
Like many siblings, the Colemans could oscillate between affection and teasing. One day John showed up at Duncan’s barbershop on East 36th Street, where Bessie was a manicurist.
French women are different, he tauntingly proclaimed. You’re never going to fly, “not like those women I saw in France.”
Smiling back at him, Bessie replied: “That’s it! You just called it for me.”
Getting to France and paying for flight instruction on a manicurist’s earnings was a hurdle she couldn’t have cleared except for Robert Abbot, publisher of the Chicago Defender. He’d issued a call for the Great Migration that inspired her brothers, myriad southern Blacks, and eventually Bessie’s mother and sisters, to move North.
Abbot saw Bessie’s quest as a worthy cause and great copy. Stories about overcoming discrimination sold newspapers. Along with Jesse Binga, a wealthy banker, Abbot helped finance Bessie’s adventure and the Defender reported it, occasionally hyping chapters with headlines like:
“Aviatrix Must Sign Away Life To Learn Trade”
Below that headline was an account of how the Ecole d’Aviation des Freres Caudron required students of France’s premier flying school to sign a release of liability should they be injured or killed.
The Defender similarly ballyhooed her 1922 Chicago debut at the Checkerboard Airdrome at Roosevelt Road and First Avenue in Maywood. Two thousand spectators paid (adults $1, children 50 cents) to see Bessie toss and turn the airplane, feigning she had lost control of it. Then she performed a figure eight in honor of the 8th Infantry, parent unit of the 370th Regiment.
Bessie’s mother was there, as was her sister Nilus and 8-year-old nephew, Arthur. “That’s my aunt!” the boy said. “A real live aviator!”
Passenger-carrying airlines had yet to appear, but stunt flying gave Bessie an income and an offer to make a movie. Still, she walked off the set when she saw the script called for her to initially appear in ragged old clothes. She refused to burlesque the poverty of her youth.
“No Uncle Tom stuff for me!” Bessie told J.A. Jackson, a Billboard magazine columnist.
While pilot Rufus Hunt flew over the grave of aviator Bessie Coleman at Lincoln Cemetery, her niece Marion Coleman waited below for flowers to be air-dropped from Hunt on April 30, 1980. The flowers landed a block from Coleman’s grave. Marion, 62, carried the floral tribute to its place by the stone marking Coleman’s grave.
While pilot Rufus Hunt flew over the grave of aviator Bessie Coleman at Lincoln Cemetery, her niece Marion Coleman waited below for flowers to be air-dropped from Hunt on April 30, 1980. The flowers landed a block from Coleman’s grave. Marion, 62, carried the floral tribute to its place by the stone marking Coleman’s grave. (James Mayo / Chicago Tribune)
Disaster struck as she was flying to a Los Angeles show in 1923. Her engine stalled, and the aircraft crashed. From a hospital bed she telegraphed friends and fans: “Tell them all that as soon as I can walk I’m going to fly! And my faith in aviation and the use it will serve in fulfilling the destiny of my people isn’t shaken at all.”
As her plane was beyond repair, she could only keep her bookings when she could borrow someone else’s. She began missing them and discarding one agent after another. In 1924 TOBA, the top Black entertainment agency, declared a boycott on Bessie, according to the Defender.
She was famous, but frustrated. Then in 1926, she heard that used airplanes were bought and sold at Love Field in Dallas. Bessie bought a well-worn Jenny two-seater. She’d opened a beauty parlor in Orlando, Florida, hoping it would finance her return to flying, Rich reports.
She hired William Wills, a white mechanic, to deliver her airplane, and on April 30, the two went aloft to have a look at the Jacksonville, Florida, racetrack where she would perform. Bessie had added a trick to her routine: stepping out on to a wing, jumping off, and parachuting to the ground.
Accordingly, Wills was in the front seat and Bessie in the rear seat, when a loose wrench got caught in the control mechanism. The Jenny turned over and Bessie fell out. Wills was killed in the ensuing crash.
The May 8, 1926, edition of the Chicago Defender told the story of Bessie Coleman falling to her death.
A hundred Black voices softly hummed “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” as Bessie’s body was lifted into the baggage car of a train bound for Chicago, according to Rich.
An overflow crowd attended her funeral at Pilgrim Baptist Church. The Defender eulogized Bessie and Wills as a Black woman and white man united by the love of flight.
In 1931, the Challenger Pilots Association, a group of pioneering Black aviators, flew over Lincoln Cemetery at Kedzie Avenue and 123rd Street and dropped flowers on Bessie’s grave. Until they were too old to fly, the members regularly repeated the gesture. Each year, bright-colored blooms floated in the air where, like Bessie said, there is no prejudice.
rgrossman@chicagotribune.com
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