For Black History Month, Miriam at Miriam’s Ideas comes up with a thoughtful look at the first licensed African-American pilot, Bessie Coleman, a Texas native who barnstormed across the state.
"Every Memorial Day, black men and women aviators fly in formation over the grave of Bessie Coleman, dropping bouquests of flowers on the grave of the first black woman ever to earn a pilot’s license."
The manner of Coleman’s premature death is a reminder of how much things have changed since the open-cockpit, wooden spar and wire-and-cloth days of the 1920s.
UPDATE Transcript of good 2002 Voice of America feature on Coleman. And this longer, very detailed feature about her flying in Lockheed-Martin’s quarterly magazine Code One.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 