Bessie Coleman Aviators Club example essay topic

Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman was born on January 26, 1892 to Susan and George Coleman who had a large family in Texas. At the time of Bessie's birth, her parents had already been married for seventeen years and already had nine children, Bessie was the tenth, and she would later have twelve brothers and sisters. Even when she was small, Bessie had to deal with issues about race. Her father was of African American and Cherokee Indian decent, and her mother was black which made it difficult from the start for her to be accepted. Her parents were sharecroppers and her life was filled with renter farms and continuous labor. Then, when Bessie was two, her father decided to move himself and his family to Waxahacie, Texas.

He thought that it would offer more opportunities for work, if he were to live in a cotton town. While Bessie was young, and her older brothers and sisters started to work in the fields, Bessie took on some new responsibilities. She would now look after her sisters, and sometimes even help her mother in the garden. Bessie started school when she was six years old and walked four miles to school everyday.

In school, she was very intelligent and excelled at math. Then, in 1901, when Bessie was nine, her life changed dramatically, her father George Coleman left his family. It was said that he was tired of the racial barriers that existed, and so he returned to Oklahoma (Indian Territory as it was called then) to search for better opportunities. When he was unable to convince his family to come with him, he left Susan and his family. Shortly thereafter, her older brothers also moved out, leaving Susan with four girls under the age of nine.

This caused Susan to have to get a job, which she found very soon. She became a housekeeper for Mr. and Mrs. Jones, who allowed Susan to still live at home, and they would also give her food and other handed-down clothing. Since her mother was now at work, Bessie took on the responsibility of acting as a mother and a housekeeper. Every year at the cotton harvest, Bessie's routine was changed because she now had to go out into the field and pick cotton for her family to be able to survive. This continued on until Bessie was twelve, and this was when she was accepted into the Missionary Baptist Church, where she completed all of her eight grades.

In 1910, she took all of her savings and enrolled in the Colored Agricultural and Normal University in Langston, Oklahoma. But even here, she was only able to accomplish one term before she ran out of money and was forced to go back to Waxahacie, where she became a laundress. In 1915, she moved in with her brother Walter in Chicago to look for work. While Bessie was in Chicago, she was in a very different community. While she was in Texas, she had to deal with segregation and now where she lived, it was a well-balanced community where the wealthy worked right alongside of the non-wealthy. She decided that she would become a beautician.

Then, while she was perfecting her skills, in 1918, her mother and her three younger sisters had joined Bessie and her brothers in Chicago. Then merely one year later, Chicago would encounter one of the worst race riots in history. By this time, Bessie had lived in Chicago five years and moved north, learned a trade and supported herself. But, this was still not good enough for her, and it was because of her older brother John that she decided to become a flier. While in the United States, Bessie could not find anyone to teach her to fly, she took a confidants advice and decided to go to aviation school in France.

She departed for France in November of 1919. While she was there, she completed a ten month course in seven months at the Ecole d'Aviation des Frees Cauldron at Le Croton in the Somme. Here her schooling included "tail spins, banking and looping the loop". Then, on June 15, 1921, Bessie Coleman became the first black women to establish a license from the Federation Aeronaut ique Internationale (FAI). Also, Bessie was the first person of any race or sex to receive an international pilot's license, which allowed her to fly anywhere in the world that she wanted to. She was the only one out of sixty-two candidates to succeed in earning an FAI license.

On September 16, 1921, Coleman boarded the "S.S. Manchuria" and was sponsored by the "Chicago Defender". It was here that she was named " the worlds greatest woman flyer". Six weeks later, she was in Chicago and performed a show. She created an image of herself wearing military style uniform. While she was in the United States, she began giving flying lessons and giving lectures throughout the country.

Then, one day as she was flying to California to earn some money to buy her own plane, her plane crashed, and miraculously she recovered with a broken leg, a few broken ribs and some scratches. It was another two years after this incident before she lined up a series of lectures and flights in Texas. But, when she did, she overcame race and sex barriers, to finally achieve what she had wanted. Coleman returned briefly to Chicago to visit her family, but was then off again to Georgia and Florida. After two months in Florida, she opened a beauty shop to make money to put it in the bank for her long awaited aviation school. Bessie also made things where she preformed at totally equal.

She would not perform unless everyone that was there used the same gate and drinking fountain. While doing this, she made quite a bit of money and now she had enough to put a down payment on a plane in Dallas and have it flown to Jacksonville for her next performance. Finally, at the end of April, Bessie's plane "Jenny" arrived in Jacksonville. On the evening of April 30th, Bessie and her mechanic took the plane up for a test run. While they were in the air, the plane malfunctioned, and the mechanic who at the time was flying the plane lost control.

Bessie fell from the open cockpit several hundred feet to her death. After her death, five thousand mourners attended her memorial service and over ten thousand people passed by her coffin to pay last respects to her. But, unfortunately, she only received the recognition that she deserved after her death. Although Bessie was never able to open an aviation school, William J. Powell was able in Los Angeles California in 1929, and he named it "Bessie Coleman Aero Club". Powell also said". Because of Lieutenant Coleman, we have overcome that which was worse than racial barriers.

We have often overcome the barriers within ourselves and dared to dream". In 1931, the Challenger's Pilots Association of Chicago began an annual flyover above Coleman's grave. More than 45 years later, women aviators in Chicago established the Bessie Coleman Aviators Club. Also, in her memory, the city of Chicago named May 2, Bessie Coleman day and also the U.S. Postal Service issued a Bessie Coleman stamp. In my opinion, Bessie Coleman should be remembered not only for the fact that she was the first black woman to earn an International pilot's license, but also because of everything that she overcame in order to get where she did.

Not only did she overcome race issues, but sex issues at the same time, and to me that just shows how strong of a woman she really was. I know if you have ever seen any pictures of her, she looks so driven, as if she knew what she had to do and what impact she had to make on the world. I think this project made me think a lot of what people are really capable of if they put their mind to it and just not giving up. She should be an example of how all of us want to live our lives everyday.