alternatehistory.com

Bessie "Queen Bess" Coleman was the first African-American woman pilot. Born in a family of Texas sharecroppers, she heard the stories of fighter pilots returning from the war in Europe while living in Chicago, and decided to learn to fly. Since US flight schools didn't admit women or nonwhites, she went to France in 1920 and returned the following year with her pilot's license. She became famous as a barnstormer and attempted to leverage her fame to raise consciousness about institutional racism. She was planning to open a flight school for Blacks.

She fell out an aircraft to her death in 1926; what could she have done had she lived longer?
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