Bessie Coleman

During the mid-1910s, Bessie Coleman moved from Texas to Chicago, first working as a manicurist at the White Sox Barber Shop and later running a chili parlor on the corner of 35th Street and Indiana Avenue. After learning about women pilots in France during World War I, Coleman became determined to fly.

American aviation schools didn’t accept black women as students in 1920, so Coleman applied to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in France. Strong moral and financial support from prominent Negro businessmen, including Robert Abbott, founder of the Chicago Defender, and banker Jesse Binga, enabled her to travel there, where she studied with the flying aces of WWI. When she graduated, Bessie Coleman was the first licensed black aviatrix in the world.

When Coleman returned to Chicago, prejudice prevented her from working as a commercial pilot. Instead, she thrilled crowds throughout the United States in stunt-flying shows. Coleman refused to fly before segregated audiences and often spoke at schools and churches to promote aviation among blacks. Coleman lived with her family at 41st Street and South Park Avenue (now King Drive).

Coleman died in 1926, a passenger in a plane that spun out of control. Every year, African-American pilots fly low over Lincoln Cemetery in Chicago and drop flowers on her grave.