Bessie Coleman, the first black female aviator, was born Jan. 26, 1892, in Atlanta, Texas. After her father left when she was 7 years old, Coleman, as one of 13 children, pitched in to help their mother make ends meet.
Coleman was an avid reader as a child, and by using the traveling library that came through town several times a week, she managed to graduate from high school. She then left for the University of Langston in Oklahoma, where she completed only one term before running out of money and returning to rural Texas.
At the age of 23, Coleman left for Chicago to stay with her brother. After hearing his stories of women in Europe flying planes in World War I, she knew she had to fly. When she couldn’t find any way to learn in the United States, facing oppression for being black as well as being a woman, Coleman took the advice of a friend and applied to aviation school in France.
Coleman received her license from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale on June 15, 1921, at the age of 29, as the only woman of the 67 candidates for certification as well as the first black woman ever to receive a pilot’s license.
In April 1926, she and her mechanic took her plane for a test flight. The craft malfunctioned while in the air and began to plummet, and Coleman fell to her death from several hundred feet.

— Jessica Richelderfer