Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam here. Well, when we think of the early pioneers in the field of American flight, we'll hear about Amelia Earhart's solo trek across the Atlantic Ocean or Charles Lindbergh's NonStop journey in the Spirit of St. Louis. But the textbooks have often overlooked a pivotal figure who made an early mark on aviation history, Bessie Coleman, who in nine one became the first African American woman to
be a licensed pilot. Coleman was born on January two and grew up in Texas, the daughter of a Native American and Black father and an African American mother who both worked as sharecroppers. As the twelfth of thirteen children, Coleman worked in the cotton fields after her father left the family to return to his native reservation. She attended primary school in a one room wooden shack. For the article this episode is based on How Stuff Works, spoke
with Dr Philip S. Hart. He's written two books on Coleman and also served as an advisor to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's Black Wings exhibit, which honors Black men and women who have advanced the field of airspace. Heart said she was a good student an avid reader. She read about a woman named Harriet Quimby, a woman pilot, she thought that might be something she would be interested
in doing. As a young woman, Coleman sought a different life for herself than the one her parents had, and she attended what's now called Langston University, but ended up dropping out for financial reasons. She eventually made her way to Chicago, where her brothers lived, and she worked as a manicurist in a local salon. A one brother, who had returned from fighting during World War One, regaled her with stories of women pilots in France, joking that Coleman
would never be able to fly like them. Such teasing only spurred on Coleman's ambitions to become a pilot. While working in the salon, Coleman met Robert abbey It, publisher of The Chicago Defender, which was a leading newspaper serving the black community. Abbott would become her mentor, supporting her interests in aviation. Hart explained one of the reasons he wanted to support her was because he knew her exploits
would make for good stories in his newspaper. Based on her gender and skin color, Coleman was denied admission to all of the aviation schools she applied to in the United States. At Abbot's encouragement, Coleman studied French and went to Paris to learn how to fly. While there, Coleman
befriended fellow black American expatriots like entertainer Josephine Baker. After receiving her international pilot's license from the International Aeronautical Federation in Coleman returned to the United States, but the only job opportunity for a trained pilot and delivering mail for the Postal Service, was unavailable to her as a black person and as a woman, so she turned to performing aerial stunts, also known as barn storming. Her first air
show took place at the Checkerboard Field in Chicago. In Nino Heart said, generally those air shows attracted anywhere from twenty thousand to thirty thousand people. Their high energy affairs, big bands. You had pilots doing tricks, wingwalkers, parachute jumpers. A very high energy, yet very dangerous event, very profitable for the pilot. Barnstorming became a lucrative way not only to make a living, but also to finance the aeronautical schools that Coleman intended to set up to foster black
participation in aviation. But despite Coleman's drive, winsome personality, and immense talent, it wasn't always an easy career path. Heart said, You're going to get negative reactions from people in general, white people because she's black and she's a woman. She's going to get a certain kind of reaction from black people who think she shouldn't be a pilot because it
was viewed to something that men should do. So she faced discrimination and conflict from both black and white people, but for the most part, her support in the black community was pretty strong. Sadly, tragedy cut short Coleman's life on April ninety six, when she died after falling from her plane while rehearsing for an air show in Jacksonville, Florida.
A funeral service was held in Jacksonville and a much larger one in Chicago, which more than five thousand people attended, including black civil rights activist Ida B. Wells, who eulogized Coleman. Coleman's life has seen a renewed interest in recent decades from institutions seeking to honor her pioneering work and legacy
as a black woman in aviation. The US Postal Service honored Coleman by placing her image on a stamp that came out in as part of their Black Heritage series, and Heart is currently working on a future film about Coleman's life story. The National Aviation Hall of Fame also enshrined Coleman as one of the honorees in two thousand six, which Amy Spowart, president and CEO of that organization, called
overdue and necessary. In an email interview with How Stuff Works, Spowart said, Bessie never took no for an answer, whether it was working extremely hard to save up the funds needed for lessons learning French. When she realized that she would need to go to France to earn her license, and that she would always fight gender and race bigotry,
Coleman didn't let anything stand in her way. Dr Hart's Mother's uncle, one James Herman Banning, was the first black American pilot to be licensed by the US government in ninety and he served as the first chief pilot of the Bessie Coleman Aero Club, which was established in nine in honor of Coleman to support black men and women in the field of aeronautics. The Bessie Coleman Aero Club ended up training many black pilots, some of whom went on to serve as Tuscogee airmen during World War Two.
They also sponsored the first all black flight shows in the nineteen thirties in Los Angeles, which raised money for the city Unemployment Fund at the height of the Great Depression. Heart said her legacy the black men and women she inspired to follow her into the field of aviation. The first African American woman to go into space, May Jamison
took a photo of Coleman into space with her. Today's episode is based on the article Bessie Coleman, America's first Black female Avia tricks on houstff works dot Com, written by Terry yr Lagata. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.