Bessie Coleman, America's First Black Female Pilot

摘要

The newspapers called her a "wonderful little woman," but she was much more. She was the first Black female American pilot, a pioneer of the civil rights movement and an inspiration to millions, especially women and people of color in aviation, all because she did what no one thought she could do and, in fact, repeatedly told her so. Bessie Coleman was born on Jan. 26,1892, in Atlanta, Texas, in the Jim Crow South. Coleman first attended school in a one-room schoolhouse that often lacked even paper and pencils. Still, she quickly proved her mathematical aptitude, completing eight grades in that tiny shack while saving money to enroll in Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University, today known as Langston University. Coleman was forced to drop out due to lack of funds after one term. At the age of 23, Coleman moved in with her brother in Chicago, a city she saw as a place where she could "amount to something." She began working as a manicurist. Her brothers had served in France during World War Ⅰ, and, as brothers do, they began teasing her that French women had opportunities she would never have. Her brother John told her, "I know something that French women do that you'll never do-fly!" Sibling rivalry can be a powerful motivator, and Coleman quickly set out to prove her brother wrong.