Today, Black female pilots represent less than ½ of 1% of the total professional pilot career field. There are less than 150 Black women pilots in the U.S. holding airline transportation pilot, commercial, military, or certified flight instructor licenses. There are (8) Black female captains of commercial airline companies.
To white America, the idea that the descendants of those who were in shackles and legally the property of others would be able to glide and soar above the clouds like others of known and accepted superiority was and still is absolutely unthinkable.
As we push forward to claim, restore, and maintain our glorious history of accomplishment, we must continue to honor and uplift the legacies of Black Brilliance in spite of the obstacles that we continue to face.
Twenty years before the Tuskegee Airmen took to the skies, a beautiful, intelligent, fearless, 5ft, 3-inch sister from Texas would become the first African-American woman to earn an international pilot license–her name was Elizabeth “Bessie” Coleman!
The life and times of “Brave” Bessie Coleman have served as an inspiration to countless Black women and men who have stepped into unfamiliar territories within their careers. Her struggles, triumphs, victories, and self-determination (kujichagulia) have served as a textbook for achievement. History has revealed that Bessie Coleman inspired the Tuskegee Airmen-a Black squadron of military pilots who flew for France during WWI; Jesse L. Brown-U.S. Navy’s first Black pilot; Guion F. Bluford-the first Black astronaut in NASA’s space program; Captain M’lis Ward-first Black women captain at United Airlines; and of course Mae Jemison-the first Black female astronaut.
Bessie Coleman was born in 1892 in the small rural town of Atlanta, Texas. During this most unfortunate period for Black people, the terrorist acts of the Ku Klux Klan, segregation, and Jim Crow laws were enforced daily. Bessie’s parents worked in the cotton fields to support the family. She was the tenth child born out of fourteen children. Every weekday, Bessie would walk four miles to her one-room school house. She loved math and kept a burning desire to read every book she could get her hands on. Twice a year, a library wagon stopped in front of her small house, and her mother would purchase and rent books for Bessie to read. Reading about Harriet Tubman and Booker T. Washington kept her motivated and inspired. When Bessie was nine, the family headed for Oklahoma. She worked and saved money by doing laundry for different families. She walked five miles a day to pick up and deliver the washed and ironed clothing. During this time, Bessie continued her education by attending the Colored Agricultural and Normal University (CANU).
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