12 Inspiring Quotes by Pioneering Black Female Aviator Bessie Coleman
Welcome to our curated collection of inspiring quotes by the famous and pioneering Black female aviator Bessie Coleman. We hope you enjoy pondering them and please share widely. Also, please link back to us if at all possible.
Wikipedia Summary for Bessie Coleman
Bessie Coleman (January 26, 1892 – April 30, 1926) was an early American civil aviator. She was the first African-American woman and first Native American to hold a pilot license. She earned her license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale on June 15, 1921, and was the first Black person to earn an international pilot's license.
Born to a family of sharecroppers in Texas, Coleman worked in the cotton fields at a young age while also studying in a small segregated school. She attended one term of college at Langston University. Coleman developed an early interest in flying, but African Americans, Native Americans, and women had no flight training opportunities in the United States, so she saved and obtained sponsorships to go to France for flight school.
She then became a high-profile pilot in notoriously dangerous air shows in the United States. She was popularly known as Queen Bess and Brave Bessie, and hoped to start a school for African-American fliers. Coleman died in a plane crash in 1926. Her pioneering role was an inspiration to early pilots and to the African-American and Native American communities.
I read everything I could get my hands on about aviating. Some of the libraries wouldn’t let black girls who picked cotton borrow books, but the books I wanted were about piloting, and folks were so surprised they let me have them anyway.
I made up my mind to try. I tried and I was successful. I shall never be satisfied until we have men of the Race who can fly. Do you know you have never lived until you have flown?
I was black, I was female, and I wanted to fly. We used to pick cotton in Texas, and I’d look up and think, If we’re going to better ourselves, we’ve got to get above these cotton fields.
I shall never be satisfied until we have men of the Race who can fly. We must have aviators if we are to keep pace with the times.
It was a terrible shock to my nerves, but I never lost them. I kept going.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
[spoken after an accident killed another flying student]
