Bessie Coleman—American Aviation Pioneer and Leader

     Have you ever been told, no? Did you really, really want to do something so much that you kept looking for ways to make it happen until you succeeded? If you have, then you are like Bessie Coleman—the first person of African descent to earn an international pilot license.

     Born in 1892 in Atlanta, Texas (near Texarkana), Elizabeth Coleman grew up wanting to be a pilot and fly. Unfortunately, the United States was still deep in the era of racial segregation and sexist barriers. Each flight school in the United States that she contacted turned down her requests for flight training because she was black or because she was a woman, sometimes both. But did that stop her?

     Determined to fly, Elizabeth—or Bessie as most people called her—learned that there was a flying school in Europe that would accept her. The only problem was that ground and flight instruction was given in French. Did that discourage her? No. Bessie learned to read, speak, and write French and then left America to learn to fly.

     Bessie’s ground and flight training took her to Germany, Holland, and France. Finally, on June 15, 1921, Bessie Coleman earned her license as “pilote-aviateur” from the prestigious Federation Aeronautique Internationale. And for those readers who know some French, the correct word to describe Bessie as an aviator is not aviateur as written on her license; it’s aviatrix.

     Fortunately, times have changed in America, and no one needs to learn another language and travel abroad to learn to fly. You can even take ground school from the comfort of home. Click the button below and take the Remote Pilot Ground School course (in English) and prepare to take the written test that will earn your remote pilot license.