Bessie Coleman

Bessie Coleman grew up in a family of 13 children in rural Texas, picking cotton and walking four miles to a one-room schoolhouse. Determined to make something of herself, she moved to Chicago and worked as a manicurist while dreaming of flight.

When no American flight school would accept a Black woman, Coleman learned French and traveled to France, where she earned her pilot's license in 1921 — the first African American woman in the world to do so. She returned to America as a barnstorming sensation, performing aerial tricks and drawing massive crowds.

Coleman refused to perform anywhere that was segregated. She dreamed of opening a flight school for African Americans and spent her brief career inspiring others to reach for the sky. She died tragically in a plane accident in 1926 at just 34, but her legacy paved the runway for every Black aviator who followed.