Bessie Coleman Research Paper

Do you know who the first African American female pilot was? If you said Bessie Coleman, you're correct. Bessie Coleman, an American civil aviator, was born on January 26, 1892 in Atlanta, Texas to sharecroppers Susan and George Coleman. Bessie was the fourth child out of six. When Bessie was two, her family moved to Waxahachie, Texas, where her father bought a quarter-acre land and built a three room house. This was when her two younger sisters were born. Her parents were both illiterate children of slaves, so Bessie would read to her younger sisters and her mother at night. Her education was limited to eight grades in a one room schoolhouse. After her father left in 1901, Bessie then became the caretaker of her two younger sisters while her …show more content…
When she first headed back to the United States, she realized being a regular pilot didn’t earn her lots of money and would have to resort to performing tricks instead. Since no one would train her to do tricks in America, she headed back to France to complete four more months of training.Later she traveled to LA to seek the support of a company that sold tires. She then returned to New York to give her first performance at Curtis Field near New York. She collected the names like Queen Bess and Brave Bessie. She specialized in stunt flying, parachuting, barnstorming, and performing aerial tricks. In 1922, she was the first black woman to fly over American soil. She was recognized as a pioneer of women in the field of aviation. Bessie had just begun to raise money to train other black aviators, but unfortunately at the age of 34, on April 30, 1926, in Jacksonville, Florida, Bessie Coleman died in a flying accident. On November 10, 2000, she was introduced into the Texas Aviation Hall of Fame, and is being remembered in the city of Atlanta by having a road to the city airport named after her. This has been your For Real

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