Question

What kind of opposition did Coleman face as a woman of color while working towards becoming a pilot and how did she overcome this opposition to make her dreams come true?

Answer 1

Due to living in southern America, Bessie Coleman had to deal with challenges because of the colour of her skin right from birth. She had to deal with segregation, disenfranchisement, and racial violence with her family growing up. Despite this she made it out okay from childhood, and after graduating high school and one semester of college, she moved to Chicago. It was here she began to develop an interest for being a pilot, but no flight schools would take her because she was an African-American woman. So since America would not provide her with schooling, she saved up some money, learned some French and sailed to France (which was viewed as much more racially progressive at the time). Here she finally was able to attend flight school, and become the first black woman in the world to obtain an aviator’s licence. She came back to America to try and open the first African-American flight school, and learn some advanced flight tricks, but again, no one would accept her. She had to go back to France again to learn these tricks, and when she came back, she was able to do some flight shows all over the country, gaining her some fame. This made some of the racist American laws easier sometimes, as with her status she tried to challenge these laws as much as possible little by little. Something as simple as changing the admission gates form segregated black and white gates to one gate for both was something Bessie accomplished. Unfortunately she was not able to do more when she was ejected out of her seat as a passenger on a plane due to malfunction and died. She made a huge impact on the world and helped get African-Americans one step closer to equality.