Bessie Coleman: In Flight
[1]
After the final performance of one last practice landing, the French instructor nodded to the young African-American woman at the controls and jumped down to the ground. Bessie Coleman was on her own now. She lined up the nose of the open cockpit biplane on the runway's center mark, she gave the engine full throttle, and took off into history.
[2]
It was a long journey from the American Southwest she'd been born in 1893, to these French skies. The year in which she was born was about a century ago. There hadn't been much of a future for her in Oklahoma then. After both semesters of the two-semester year at Langston Industrial College, Coleman headed for Chicago to see what could be done to realize a dream. Ever since she saw her first airplane when she was a little girl, Coleman had known that someday, somehow, she would fly.
[3]
Try as she might, however, Coleman could not obtain flying lessons anywhere in the city. Then she sought aid from Robert S. Abbott of the Chicago Weekly Defender. The newspaperman got in touch with a flight school in France that was willing to teach this determined young woman to fly.
[4]
[1] While they're, she had as one of her instructors Anthony Fokker, the famous aircraft designer. [2] Bessie Coleman took a quick course in French, should she settle her affairs, and sailed for Europe. [3] Coping with a daily foreign language and flying in capricious, unstable machines held together with baling wire was daunting, but Coleman persevered.
[5]
On June 15, 1921, Bessie Coleman, earned an international pilot's license, issued by the International Aeronautical Federation. Not only was she the first black woman to win her pilot's wings, she was the first American woman to hold this coveted license.
[6]
She was ready for a triumphant return to the United States to barnstorm and lecture proof that if the will is strong enough for one's dream can be attained.
