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Happy Birthday Bessie Coleman!

So I just saw the Google Doodle and thought hey... why not talk about it here!

Bessie Colman was the first woman pilot of African American Descent and the first woman of Native American descent to have a pilot license!

She was a Civilian Aviatrix, which I guess was something that they had in the early days of flying where it was mostly stunt-flying and not commercial flying. She performed for paid audiences... the Blue Angels come to mind when I think of that. I've seen them before and that was exciting.

Bessie did die in a plane crash. It was an unstable plane, people warned her not to go in it. She didn't wear her seatbelt because she was planning to parachute out of it... but she checked the cockpit to examine the terrain and was thrown from the plane.

I've never heard of Bessie Coleman before, very sad that she was just in her early 30s before her tragic death... but that is a great accomplishment for a woman of color back in the 1920s... she actually couldn't even study in the US because of her gender and her race, so she went to Paris to study.

Aside from what Wiki and Google had to say about her this is an article I saw about her as well that I thought was good.

I just thought it was fun to learn something new, so I thought I'd share it!

Goodnight!
-Shannon
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