Bessie Coleman

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight. Back in Atlanta, Texas, in 1892, a girl was born who would one day make the whole sky sit up and pay attention. Her name was Bessie Coleman.

She grew up right here in Waxahachie, went to school just a few blocks north of where this marker stands, in a neighborhood that probably didn't look like much of a launching pad for history. But that's the thing about history; it rarely does. At age twenty-three, Bessie Coleman packed up and moved to Chicago, and it was there she first said out loud what she wanted: she wanted to fly.

Now, here's where the story gets its teeth. There was not a single flight school in this entire country that would teach an African American woman. Not one.

So Bessie Coleman did what you do when a door gets slammed in your face: she went and found a bigger door. She went to France. She learned to fly in France, and in 1921 she came back with an international pilot's license in her hand.

When she returned to the United States, she was hailed as the first black woman pilot. They called her Queen Bess. And Queen Bess did not quietly retire to someone's hangar and let the world forget her name.

She performed as a barnstormer (air shows, exhibitions, crowds all across the country), and she insisted those audiences be integrated. Every single time. Bessie Coleman was born in 1892 and she died in 1926, in an air accident in Jacksonville, Florida.

She never stopped reaching for altitude while she was here. That's the kind of story this marker is asking you to remember.

What the marker says

(1892-1926) Born in Atlanta, Texas, pioneer aviatrix Bessie Coleman grew up and went to school in a Waxahachie neighborhood a few blocks north of this site. At age 23 she moved to Chicago and first expressed her desire to fly. Since there were no flight schools in this country that would teach African American women, Coleman learned to fly in France and obtained her international pilot's license in 1921. Upon her return to the United States, she was hailed as the first black woman pilot. Extremely popular, "Queen Bess", as she was known, performed as a barnstormer for integrated audiences at air shows and exhibitions around the country before her death in an air accident in Jacksonville, Florida. (2001)