PORTRAIT of FLIGHT LEGEND BESSIE COLEMAN c. 1923 Poster

Around 1923, Bessie Coleman, the first woman of African-American and Native American descent to hold a pilot license, dressed in her BC flight uniform. The Texas native picked cotton under the hot sun, but she had a dream of flying. At the height of segregation in America, no flight school would train women, African-Americans, or Native Americans. She struck out on three counts. But she had an idea. She took a second job and saved her money for a trip to France to obtain her pilot license. She studied Berlitz French Language course and left for Paris. She learned to fly in a Nieuport 82 biplane with a steering system that consisted of a vertical stick the thickness of a baseball bat in front of the pilot and a rudder bar under the pilot's feet. On June 15, 1921 the 25-year-old American was awarded her license and returned home as a media sensation, where she performed in barnstorming stunt flying shows billed as the world's greatest woman flier.