Bessie Coleman: boundary-breaking pilot

Jonny Wilkes delves into the life of the fearless female aviator who refused to be held back by discrimination, and who did her utmost to ensure that other people of colour could follow in her footsteps

- John Wilkes

While working as a manicurist in Chicago in 1919, twentysomething Bessie Coleman decided what she wanted to do with her life: fly. She had heard about heroic World War I aces and death-defying aviators wowing crowds with their aerobatic antics, and desperately wanted to be part of it. The chances of her taking to the skies were extremely slim. For one thing, she was a woman; for another, she was black. But when her brother teased her by saying a black woman would never fly, Coleman's mind was made up. "That's it! You just called it for me!"

All she had was an insatiable motivation - she certainly didn't have money. Elizabeth Coleman had been born, on 26 January 1892, into an impoverished family in Texas, the 10th of 13 children to African-American mother Susan and father George, who was part-Cherokee. They worked as sharecroppers and labourers, and a young 'Bessie' had to help pick cotton and walk for miles just to attend a one-room school. Although naturally bright and inquisitive, she could only afford one semester at university.

BARNSTORMING SUCCESS

Her move from Waxahachie, Texas, to Chicago came in the early stages of the Great Migration when African-Americans left the South in their millions to find greater opportunities in the North - but prejudice could not so easily be escaped.

In 1919, the city erupted into race riots. Yet that same year, Coleman found hope in tales of aviation, especially of the female pilots in France that her brother saw while fighting in the war.