Bessie Coleman Biography

Bessie Coleman was born in 1892 in northeast Texas. She was raised in Waxahachie, Texas and in her early twenties she moved to Chicago because she wanted to learn how to fly planes. Bessie Coleman became the first African American female to fly planes. Since Bessie was a woman and African American she wasn’t able to get accepted into American flight schools. So, she attended flight school in France and earned her international pilot’s license. Once she got her license she returned to the United States and showed off all the skills that she had learned in France. Bessie also encouraged other African Americans to fly because not a lot of African Americans were pilots. She did not participate in air shows that discriminated against African Americans flying planes. Sadly, in 1926 Bessie Coleman died in an accident while test flying her plane before an airshow that she was performing in in Florida. To keep her memory and legacy alive a flight school for African Americans was founded in 1929 in Los Angeles, California. Bessie Coleman is still so important today because she proved that no matter your gender or race you can overcome all obstacles to do what you want to do.
I choose to write this biography on Bessie Coleman because she fought for what she believed in and was very successful in achieving her goals that paved the way for other African Americans that wanted to become pilots to be able