‹ The Hall of RecordsEntered into the record July 28, 2026
HISTORICAL RECORD · A DEMONSTRATIONFlight1892 to 1926

Filed under

Manicurist, White Sox Barbershop, Chicago. [B1]Coleman, Bessie (Bessie Coleman: The First Licensed Black Pilot), by Roni MoralesTexas State Historical Associationclass B · read 2026-07-28

Lifted off the document

A newspaper advertisement for Bessie Coleman's exhibition flight at Checkerboard Airdrome, printed in The Chicago Whip, October 14, 1922.

[A7]Library of Congress, Chronicling America (National Digital Newspaper Program)1922-10-14The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.read 2026-07-29Cropped to the advertisement block by IIIF region request (region 2098,2818,1258,1862 of the 4775x6472 master page image); JPEG converted to WebP at quality 80. No resize needed (long edge 1862, under the 2200 cap). No retouching, no compositing.

The record

White pilots in the United States refused to give her instruction. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale issued her an aviator's licence on June 15, 1921. [A1]Bessie Coleman's Daring Life as The First Licensed Black Woman Pilot (published June 15, 2021; originally published as "Celebrating the Centennial of Bessie Coleman as the First Licensed African American Woman Pilot")Smithsonian National Air and Space Museumclass A · read 2026-07-28

Bessie Coleman

A Professional Identity Record compiled from institutional archives, held together by one document: the aviator's licence the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale issued on June 15, 1921. [A1]Bessie Coleman's Daring Life as The First Licensed Black Woman Pilot (published June 15, 2021; originally published as "Celebrating the Centennial of Bessie Coleman as the First Licensed African American Woman Pilot")Smithsonian National Air and Space Museumclass A · read 2026-07-28

Entries

The record in order

  1. 1892

    Atlanta, Texas

    The Handbook of Texas records the birth on January 26, 1892, the twelfth of thirteen children, and a childhood at Waxahachie. [B1]Coleman, Bessie (Bessie Coleman: The First Licensed Black Pilot), by Roni MoralesTexas State Historical Associationclass B · read 2026-07-28

  2. 1915

    Chicago

    The older children of the family joined the Great Migration north, and the National Air and Space Museum records Coleman arriving in Chicago in 1915, later followed by her mother and the rest of the family. [A3]Bessie Coleman: Five Stories You May Not Know, by Amelia Grabowski, published June 14, 2021Smithsonian National Air and Space Museumclass A · read 2026-07-28

  3. 1916

    The label: manicurist

    The museum records that she trained at the Burnham School of Beauty Culture and won a contest in 1916 that named her the best manicurist in Black Chicago, work that let her save toward flight training. [A3]Bessie Coleman: Five Stories You May Not Know, by Amelia Grabowski, published June 14, 2021Smithsonian National Air and Space Museumclass A · read 2026-07-28

  4. 1920

    Departure for France

    Refused instruction by white pilots in the United States, she took French lessons on the advice of the publisher of the Chicago Defender, travelled to Paris, and was accepted by the Caudron Brothers School of Aviation, training on a Nieuport 82 dual-controlled trainer. [A1]Bessie Coleman's Daring Life as The First Licensed Black Woman Pilot (published June 15, 2021; originally published as "Celebrating the Centennial of Bessie Coleman as the First Licensed African American Woman Pilot")Smithsonian National Air and Space Museumclass A · read 2026-07-28

  5. 1921

    The licence, June 15

    The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale issued the licence on June 15, 1921. The National Air and Space Museum records it as the first pilot's licence issued to an African American woman and to a Native American woman. [A1]Bessie Coleman's Daring Life as The First Licensed Black Woman Pilot (published June 15, 2021; originally published as "Celebrating the Centennial of Bessie Coleman as the First Licensed African American Woman Pilot")Smithsonian National Air and Space Museumclass A · read 2026-07-28

  6. 1922

    Curtiss Field, September 3

    The first public flight by a Black woman in the United States, in a borrowed Curtiss JN-4D Jenny at Curtiss Field on Long Island, followed by Memphis and by Checkerboard Field, Chicago, on October 15 before an integrated crowd of 2,000. [A1]Bessie Coleman's Daring Life as The First Licensed Black Woman Pilot (published June 15, 2021; originally published as "Celebrating the Centennial of Bessie Coleman as the First Licensed African American Woman Pilot")Smithsonian National Air and Space Museumclass A · read 2026-07-28

  7. 1925

    Exhibitions, lectures, and a school that was never opened

    By May 1925 she was in Houston for the first of a multi-city tour that included Waxahachie, flying loops, figure-eights and parachute jumps before large integrated crowds and speaking to audiences whose fees often exceeded the flying. The stated goal throughout was a flight school of her own, open to all interested students; the museum records that it was never achieved. [A1]Bessie Coleman's Daring Life as The First Licensed Black Woman Pilot (published June 15, 2021; originally published as "Celebrating the Centennial of Bessie Coleman as the First Licensed African American Woman Pilot")Smithsonian National Air and Space Museumclass A · read 2026-07-28

  8. 1926

    Jacksonville, April 30

    Coleman was killed during a practice flight at Paxon Field, Jacksonville, Florida, before a show scheduled for the following day. Her mechanic William Wills, who was piloting, was killed with her. Authorities found a loose wrench lodged in the control gears and determined the cause to be accidental. [A1]Bessie Coleman's Daring Life as The First Licensed Black Woman Pilot (published June 15, 2021; originally published as "Celebrating the Centennial of Bessie Coleman as the First Licensed African American Woman Pilot")Smithsonian National Air and Space Museumclass A · read 2026-07-28

Record boundary

What the sources establish

Sources read
8
Primary or institutional
7
Distinct sources cited on this page
5
Works of record
3

Where the sources do not settle a question, this record does not answer it. Nothing above is inferred from anything else on the page.

What the record declines

That Coleman was the first woman in the world to hold a pilot's licence, or the first Black person in the world to hold one.

The record ships the narrow claim its strongest source actually makes and refuses the broad ones. The National Air and Space Museum's published formulation is scoped: the first pilot's licence issued to an African American woman and to a Native American woman, and elsewhere the first African American woman to earn a pilot's licence. The Handbook of Texas states a far wider claim, the first Black person in the world to become a licensed pilot, which no other source read here corroborates. Nothing read here states a first-woman claim of any kind. [A1]Bessie Coleman's Daring Life as The First Licensed Black Woman Pilot (published June 15, 2021; originally published as "Celebrating the Centennial of Bessie Coleman as the First Licensed African American Woman Pilot")Smithsonian National Air and Space Museumclass A · read 2026-07-28

Checked: Both National Air and Space Museum articles and the Handbook of Texas entry, read at their published URLs on 2026-07-28, with the scope of each sentence compared word for word.

That the birth year is settled, and that ages given for her can be relied on.

The Handbook of Texas gives January 26, 1892, and the National Air and Space Museum publishes 1892 as well, but the museum's own articles state ages that do not resolve to one year: the centennial article puts her at 27 at the 1920 crossroads in Chicago, while an earlier museum article calls her 24 years old when she left that job for France. This record states the year the Handbook of Texas gives and carries no age as a figure of record. [A4]How Bessie Coleman Broke Barriers to Make History, by Gabrielle Barone, published June 15, 2018 (originally published as "Bessie Coleman: Barnstorming through Barriers")Smithsonian National Air and Space Museumclass A · read 2026-07-28

Checked: The Handbook of Texas entry, the museum's centennial article, and the museum's 2018 article, read at their published URLs on 2026-07-28 and compared against each other.

That the sentences circulating as Coleman's own words are verbatim quotation.

No quotation is attributed to her anywhere on this page. The National Air and Space Museum reproduces her reply to her brother's taunt in two different forms across its own articles, and marks the best known line about film roles as reported rather than recorded. Where the institutions themselves cannot hold the wording steady, the record carries the fact and drops the sentence. [A3]Bessie Coleman: Five Stories You May Not Know, by Amelia Grabowski, published June 14, 2021Smithsonian National Air and Space Museumclass A · read 2026-07-28

Checked: The three National Air and Space Museum articles, read on 2026-07-28, with the quoted strings compared against one another.

That Coleman was flying the aircraft when she died, or that any dramatized account of the fall is the record.

The contemporary press did not agree with itself. The Broad Ax of Chicago reported on May 8, 1926, that she was killed while piloting the plane; the Washington Tribune reported the previous day that the plane was in the charge of the man who had flown it in from Texas, and gave altitudes that do not match the museum's account. The National Air and Space Museum records that her mechanic William Wills was at the controls and that a loose wrench lodged in the control gears was found to be the cause. This record states the date, the place, who was flying and the finding, and carries no altitude and no account of the fall. [A6]The Washington Tribune (Washington, D.C.), May 7, 1926, page 1, "Bessie Coleman, Aviatrix, Killed in Fall from Plane". Read as the page's ALTO text layer; the page image is served at https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn87062236/1926-05-07/ed-1/?sp=1. Digitized by the Library of Congress.Library of Congress, Chronicling America (National Digital Newspaper Program)class A · read 2026-07-28

Checked: The Broad Ax page 1 of May 8, 1926, and the Washington Tribune page 1 of May 7, 1926, both read through the Library of Congress text layer on 2026-07-28, against the museum's centennial article.

The record

Bessie Coleman has a source page.

The same renderer a customer's published page mounts, drawing the same facts this room holds the sources for. Everything below is its apparatus.

View the record →sourceofyou.com/bessie-coleman
One record, two views

The apparatus

What stands behind the record: the works and who holds them, the claims this record refuses, every source read and when, and the gate stack this figure passed before a page was compiled.

Works

Works of record

Each work is listed with the institution that holds it and the rights statement that institution publishes, quoted as written.

1921

Aviator's licence, Fédération Aéronautique Internationale [A1]Bessie Coleman's Daring Life as The First Licensed Black Woman Pilot (published June 15, 2021; originally published as "Celebrating the Centennial of Bessie Coleman as the First Licensed African American Woman Pilot")Smithsonian National Air and Space Museumclass A · read 2026-07-28

The document of record, issued June 15, 1921. The National Air and Space Museum publishes it as the first pilot's licence issued to an African American woman and to a Native American woman, and reproduces the licence alongside its account of the training at the Caudron Brothers School of Aviation.

Held by
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
Rights, as published
Smithsonian Terms of Use, https://www.si.edu/termsofuse, read 2026-07-28, quoted verbatim: "All other Content is subject to usage conditions due to copyright and/or other restrictions and may only be used for personal, educational, and other non-commercial uses consistent with the principles of fair use under Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act." No Creative Commons Zero icon appears on this article page. Nothing from it is reproduced here beyond short factual statements in the record's own words.

1922

First public flight by a Black woman in the United States [A1]Bessie Coleman's Daring Life as The First Licensed Black Woman Pilot (published June 15, 2021; originally published as "Celebrating the Centennial of Bessie Coleman as the First Licensed African American Woman Pilot")Smithsonian National Air and Space Museumclass A · read 2026-07-28

September 3, 1922, in a borrowed Curtiss JN-4D Jenny at Curtiss Field on Long Island, followed by a flight in Memphis and an exhibition at Checkerboard Field, Chicago, on October 15 before an integrated crowd of 2,000.

Held by
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
Rights, as published
Smithsonian Terms of Use, https://www.si.edu/termsofuse, read 2026-07-28, quoted verbatim: "All other Content is subject to usage conditions due to copyright and/or other restrictions and may only be used for personal, educational, and other non-commercial uses consistent with the principles of fair use under Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act." No Creative Commons Zero icon appears on this article page. Nothing from it is reproduced here beyond short factual statements in the record's own words.

1925

The lecture and exhibition tour [B1]Coleman, Bessie (Bessie Coleman: The First Licensed Black Pilot), by Roni MoralesTexas State Historical Associationclass B · read 2026-07-28

The Handbook of Texas records lectures given at schools and churches to encourage young Black men and women to enter aviation, and one occasion at Waxahachie where Coleman refused to give an exhibition on White school grounds unless Black attendees were admitted through the same entrance as White attendees. The Handbook records that the request was granted and that the audience remained segregated once inside.

Held by
Texas State Historical Association
Rights, as published
Texas State Historical Association copyright notice, quoted verbatim from the entry page: "All copyrighted materials included within the Handbook of Texas Online are in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 related to Copyright and “Fair Use” for Non-Profit educational institutions, which permits the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), to utilize copyrighted materials to further scholarship, education, and inform the public. The TSHA makes every effort to conform to the principles of fair use and to comply with copyright law."
Sources

Sources

Class A is primary or institutional archival material. Class B is scholarly secondary work, cited with edition and page, and used only where class A could not be reached. Every source below was read at the URL given, on the date given.

  1. [A1]Class A

    Bessie Coleman's Daring Life as The First Licensed Black Woman Pilot (published June 15, 2021; originally published as "Celebrating the Centennial of Bessie Coleman as the First Licensed African American Woman Pilot")

    Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

    https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/celebrating-centennial-bessie-colemanread 2026-07-28

    Smithsonian Terms of Use, https://www.si.edu/termsofuse, read 2026-07-28, quoted verbatim: "All other Content is subject to usage conditions due to copyright and/or other restrictions and may only be used for personal, educational, and other non-commercial uses consistent with the principles of fair use under Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act." No Creative Commons Zero icon appears on this article page. Nothing from it is reproduced here beyond short factual statements in the record's own words.

  2. [A2]Class A

    Bessie Coleman, First African American Woman to Earn a Pilot's License (museum story page)

    Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

    https://airandspace.si.edu/explore/stories/bessie-colemanread 2026-07-28

    Smithsonian Terms of Use, https://www.si.edu/termsofuse, read 2026-07-28, quoted verbatim: "All other Content is subject to usage conditions due to copyright and/or other restrictions and may only be used for personal, educational, and other non-commercial uses consistent with the principles of fair use under Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act."

  3. [A3]Class A

    Bessie Coleman: Five Stories You May Not Know, by Amelia Grabowski, published June 14, 2021

    Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

    https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/bessie-coleman-five-stories-you-may-not-knowread 2026-07-28

    Smithsonian Terms of Use, https://www.si.edu/termsofuse, read 2026-07-28, quoted verbatim: "All other Content is subject to usage conditions due to copyright and/or other restrictions and may only be used for personal, educational, and other non-commercial uses consistent with the principles of fair use under Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act."

  4. [A4]Class A

    How Bessie Coleman Broke Barriers to Make History, by Gabrielle Barone, published June 15, 2018 (originally published as "Bessie Coleman: Barnstorming through Barriers")

    Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

    https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/how-bessie-coleman-broke-barriers-make-historyread 2026-07-28

    Smithsonian Terms of Use, https://www.si.edu/termsofuse, read 2026-07-28, quoted verbatim: "All other Content is subject to usage conditions due to copyright and/or other restrictions and may only be used for personal, educational, and other non-commercial uses consistent with the principles of fair use under Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act." Cited here only for the age it states, which the decline list uses as evidence that the ages diverge.

  5. [A5]Class A

    The Broad Ax (Salt Lake City, Utah; Chicago, Ill.), May 8, 1926, page 1, "Bessie Coleman, Aviatrix, Killed in Plane Accident" (Preston News Service). Read as the page's ALTO text layer; the page image is served at https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84024055/1926-05-08/ed-1/?sp=1. Digitized by the University of Illinois, Urbana.

    Library of Congress, Chronicling America (National Digital Newspaper Program)

    https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ndnp/iune/batch_iune_bismuth_ver01/data/sn84024055/0033289805A/1926050801/0080.xmlread 2026-07-28

    Library of Congress, Chronicling America Rights and Access, https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/about-this-collection/rights-and-access/, read 2026-07-28, quoted verbatim: "The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety."

  6. [A6]Class A

    The Washington Tribune (Washington, D.C.), May 7, 1926, page 1, "Bessie Coleman, Aviatrix, Killed in Fall from Plane". Read as the page's ALTO text layer; the page image is served at https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn87062236/1926-05-07/ed-1/?sp=1. Digitized by the Library of Congress.

    Library of Congress, Chronicling America (National Digital Newspaper Program)

    https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ndnp/dlc/batch_dlc_arneaux_ver02/data/sn87062236/00542863778/1926050701/0201.xmlread 2026-07-28

    Library of Congress, Chronicling America Rights and Access, https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/about-this-collection/rights-and-access/, read 2026-07-28, quoted verbatim: "The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety."

  7. [B1]Class B

    Coleman, Bessie (Bessie Coleman: The First Licensed Black Pilot), by Roni Morales

    Texas State Historical Association. Handbook of Texas Online, entry "Coleman, Bessie" (TID FCOBQ), original publication date August 1, 1995, most recent revision January 27, 2022. A single-entry web publication carrying no pagination; the entry runs unpaginated from the birth sentence to the 1995 postage-stamp sentence. Bibliography includes Doris L. Rich, Queen Bess: Daredevil Aviator (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993) and the Houston Post-Dispatch of May 1, 1926.

    https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/coleman-bessieread 2026-07-28

    Texas State Historical Association copyright notice, quoted verbatim from the entry page: "All copyrighted materials included within the Handbook of Texas Online are in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 related to Copyright and “Fair Use” for Non-Profit educational institutions, which permits the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), to utilize copyrighted materials to further scholarship, education, and inform the public. The TSHA makes every effort to conform to the principles of fair use and to comply with copyright law."

  8. [A7]Class A

    The Chicago whip (Chicago, Ill.), October 14, 1922, Image 2

    Library of Congress, Chronicling America (National Digital Newspaper Program)

    https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn86056950/1922-10-14/ed-1/?sp=2read 2026-07-29

    The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.

Clearance

How this record was cleared

Every record in the Hall passes the same gate stack before a page is compiled, and the result is published rather than merely filed.

Died
1926
Public domain basis
Nothing under copyright is reproduced. The only primary documents quoted are two United States newspaper pages published in 1926, of which the Library of Congress states that newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Every other string on this page is the record's own third-person prose, written from institutional accounts and cited to them. Coleman died in 1926, four years inside the Hall clearance line of 1930.
Estate and licensing screen
Screened 2026-07-28. No enforcing estate, heir representative or licensing agent for Bessie Coleman is named on any page read for this record. The National Air and Space Museum, the Texas State Historical Association and the Library of Congress each publish her biography or contemporary coverage of her with no estate credit, permission notice or rights-holder contact attached.
Trademark screen
Screened 2026-07-28, against the published sources only; no trademark register was queried, and this screen is limited accordingly. No live commercial mark surfaced. The name appears in the sources as institutional and civic commemoration rather than as a mark in trade: the Handbook of Texas records a 1995 United States Postal Service commemorative stamp, a Chicago street renamed Bessie Coleman Drive in 1990, and a Bessie Coleman Day declared in Chicago in 1992.
Dignity screen
The page opens on the licence, not on the doors that closed. The refusals Coleman met are stated once each, as documented fact and in the register the institutions use, and they are context rather than the page's engine. Her death is stated plainly in the story and once in the schedule, with the finding of record, and appears nowhere as a plaque, a figure of record or a hook; no altitude, no description of the fall and no dramatized detail is carried, and a decline is filed against every such account. No age is carried as a figure, because the institutional sources do not resolve to one. No quotation is attributed to her, because the museum's own pages reproduce her reported words inconsistently.
Gate stack run
2026-07-28

The machine record

The structured representation this page is built from, printed field by field.

Every row below is a field of this figure's module, printed with its value and the citation key that settles it. Nothing here is summarised or inferred. It is shown as text for a reader: this page emits no machine-readable metadata, and it is excluded from the sitemap, from llms.txt, and from search indexes.

identity

slugbessie-coleman
handlebessie-coleman
nameBessie Coleman
disciplineFlight
entered2026-07-28
accent#1B4B6B

claims

labelManicurist, White Sox Barbershop, Chicago. [B1]
turnWhite pilots in the United States refused to give her instruction. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale issued her an aviator's licence on June 15, 1921. [A1]
lifespan1892 to 1926 [B1]
statementA Professional Identity Record compiled from institutional archives, held together by one document: the aviator's licence the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale issued on June 15, 1921. [A1]

story[7]

story[0]The document at the centre of this record is an aviator's licence issued by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale on June 15, 1921, which the National Air and Space Museum records as the first pilot's licence issued to an African American woman and to a Native American woman. [A1]
story[1]Before it, the smallest sentence Chicago filed her under was manicurist: the Handbook of Texas records the job at the White Sox Barbershop through the early years of the First World War, and a small but profitable chili parlor afterwards. [B1]
story[2]No American school would take her, so she enrolled in French lessons on the advice of the publisher of the Chicago Defender, saved the fare, sailed for France, and was accepted by the Caudron Brothers School of Aviation. [A1]
story[3]On September 3, 1922, at Curtiss Field on Long Island, in a borrowed Curtiss JN-4D Jenny, she made what the museum records as the first public flight by a Black woman in the United States, followed by a flight in Memphis and an exhibition at Checkerboard Field in Chicago on October 15 before an integrated crowd of 2,000. [A1]
story[4]The exhibition years were also a speaking career, and the museum records that the talks often paid more than the flying. [A1]
story[5]The Handbook of Texas records that she lectured at schools and churches to encourage young Black men and women to enter aviation, and that at Waxahachie she refused to give an exhibition on White school grounds unless Black attendees were admitted through the same entrance as White attendees. [B1]
story[6]She was killed on April 30, 1926, at Paxon Field, Jacksonville, Florida, during a practice flight before a scheduled show; her mechanic William Wills, who was at the controls, was killed with her, and authorities found a loose wrench lodged in the control gears and determined the cause to be accidental. [A1]

schedule[8]

schedule[0] [B1]

span1892
titleAtlanta, Texas
detailThe Handbook of Texas records the birth on January 26, 1892, the twelfth of thirteen children, and a childhood at Waxahachie.

schedule[1] [A3]

span1915
titleChicago
detailThe older children of the family joined the Great Migration north, and the National Air and Space Museum records Coleman arriving in Chicago in 1915, later followed by her mother and the rest of the family.

schedule[2] [A3]

span1916
titleThe label: manicurist
detailThe museum records that she trained at the Burnham School of Beauty Culture and won a contest in 1916 that named her the best manicurist in Black Chicago, work that let her save toward flight training.

schedule[3] [A1]

span1920
titleDeparture for France
detailRefused instruction by white pilots in the United States, she took French lessons on the advice of the publisher of the Chicago Defender, travelled to Paris, and was accepted by the Caudron Brothers School of Aviation, training on a Nieuport 82 dual-controlled trainer.

schedule[4] [A1]

span1921
titleThe licence, June 15
detailThe Fédération Aéronautique Internationale issued the licence on June 15, 1921. The National Air and Space Museum records it as the first pilot's licence issued to an African American woman and to a Native American woman.

schedule[5] [A1]

span1922
titleCurtiss Field, September 3
detailThe first public flight by a Black woman in the United States, in a borrowed Curtiss JN-4D Jenny at Curtiss Field on Long Island, followed by Memphis and by Checkerboard Field, Chicago, on October 15 before an integrated crowd of 2,000.

schedule[6] [A1]

span1925
titleExhibitions, lectures, and a school that was never opened
detailBy May 1925 she was in Houston for the first of a multi-city tour that included Waxahachie, flying loops, figure-eights and parachute jumps before large integrated crowds and speaking to audiences whose fees often exceeded the flying. The stated goal throughout was a flight school of her own, open to all interested students; the museum records that it was never achieved.

schedule[7] [A1]

span1926
titleJacksonville, April 30
detailColeman was killed during a practice flight at Paxon Field, Jacksonville, Florida, before a show scheduled for the following day. Her mechanic William Wills, who was piloting, was killed with her. Authorities found a loose wrench lodged in the control gears and determined the cause to be accidental.

figures[5]

figures[0] [A1]

labelJune 15, 1921
detailThe date the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale issued the aviator's licence, after training at the Caudron Brothers School of Aviation in France.

figures[1] [A1]

labelSeptember 3, 1922
detailThe first public flight by a Black woman in the United States, per the National Air and Space Museum: Curtiss Field on Long Island, in a borrowed Curtiss JN-4D Jenny.

figures[2] [A1]

label2,000 in the crowd
detailThe integrated audience at Checkerboard Field, Chicago, on October 15, 1922, as the National Air and Space Museum records it.

figures[3] [B1]

label12th of 13
detailColeman's place among her siblings, per the Handbook of Texas: born at Atlanta, Texas, raised at Waxahachie.

figures[4] [B1]

label32 cents
detailThe United States Postal Service commemorative stamp issued in her honor in 1995, per the Handbook of Texas.

works[3]

works[0] [A1]

titleAviator's licence, Fédération Aéronautique Internationale
year1921
noteThe document of record, issued June 15, 1921. The National Air and Space Museum publishes it as the first pilot's licence issued to an African American woman and to a Native American woman, and reproduces the licence alongside its account of the training at the Caudron Brothers School of Aviation.
urlhttps://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/celebrating-centennial-bessie-coleman

works[1] [A1]

titleFirst public flight by a Black woman in the United States
year1922
noteSeptember 3, 1922, in a borrowed Curtiss JN-4D Jenny at Curtiss Field on Long Island, followed by a flight in Memphis and an exhibition at Checkerboard Field, Chicago, on October 15 before an integrated crowd of 2,000.
urlhttps://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/celebrating-centennial-bessie-coleman

works[2] [B1]

titleThe lecture and exhibition tour
year1925
noteThe Handbook of Texas records lectures given at schools and churches to encourage young Black men and women to enter aviation, and one occasion at Waxahachie where Coleman refused to give an exhibition on White school grounds unless Black attendees were admitted through the same entrance as White attendees. The Handbook records that the request was granted and that the audience remained segregated once inside.
urlhttps://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/coleman-bessie

answers[5]

answers[0] [A2]

qWhy did Coleman train in France?
aBecause no school in the United States would train her. The National Air and Space Museum records that white pilots in the United States refused to train her on account of her race and her gender, and that the publisher of the Chicago Defender advised her to learn French and seek training in France.

answers[1] [B1]

qWhat was the job on record before the licence?
aManicurist. The Handbook of Texas records her working at the White Sox Barbershop in Chicago through the early years of the First World War, after a period at beauty school, and afterwards running a small but profitable chili parlor.

answers[2] [B1]

qWhat did she require of an audience?
aThe Handbook of Texas records that at Waxahachie she refused to give an exhibition on White school grounds unless Black attendees were permitted to use the same entrance as White attendees; the request was granted, and the audience remained segregated once inside.

answers[3] [B1]

qDid the flying school open?
aNo. The Handbook of Texas records that the flying school she intended for Black students never materialized, and that the Bessie Coleman Aero groups were organized after her death.

answers[4] [A5]

qWhat did the Chicago press record after her death?
aThe Broad Ax of Chicago reported on May 8, 1926, that her remains reached the city that Wednesday and lay in state at an undertaking establishment on Indiana Avenue, where they were viewed by several thousand people, and that funeral services were held on the Friday morning at Pilgrim Baptist Church, with interment at Lincoln Cemetery.

declines[4]

declines[0] [A1]

mythThat Coleman was the first woman in the world to hold a pilot's licence, or the first Black person in the world to hold one.
refusalThe record ships the narrow claim its strongest source actually makes and refuses the broad ones. The National Air and Space Museum's published formulation is scoped: the first pilot's licence issued to an African American woman and to a Native American woman, and elsewhere the first African American woman to earn a pilot's licence. The Handbook of Texas states a far wider claim, the first Black person in the world to become a licensed pilot, which no other source read here corroborates. Nothing read here states a first-woman claim of any kind.
checkedBoth National Air and Space Museum articles and the Handbook of Texas entry, read at their published URLs on 2026-07-28, with the scope of each sentence compared word for word.

declines[1] [A4]

mythThat the birth year is settled, and that ages given for her can be relied on.
refusalThe Handbook of Texas gives January 26, 1892, and the National Air and Space Museum publishes 1892 as well, but the museum's own articles state ages that do not resolve to one year: the centennial article puts her at 27 at the 1920 crossroads in Chicago, while an earlier museum article calls her 24 years old when she left that job for France. This record states the year the Handbook of Texas gives and carries no age as a figure of record.
checkedThe Handbook of Texas entry, the museum's centennial article, and the museum's 2018 article, read at their published URLs on 2026-07-28 and compared against each other.

declines[2] [A3]

mythThat the sentences circulating as Coleman's own words are verbatim quotation.
refusalNo quotation is attributed to her anywhere on this page. The National Air and Space Museum reproduces her reply to her brother's taunt in two different forms across its own articles, and marks the best known line about film roles as reported rather than recorded. Where the institutions themselves cannot hold the wording steady, the record carries the fact and drops the sentence.
checkedThe three National Air and Space Museum articles, read on 2026-07-28, with the quoted strings compared against one another.

declines[3] [A6]

mythThat Coleman was flying the aircraft when she died, or that any dramatized account of the fall is the record.
refusalThe contemporary press did not agree with itself. The Broad Ax of Chicago reported on May 8, 1926, that she was killed while piloting the plane; the Washington Tribune reported the previous day that the plane was in the charge of the man who had flown it in from Texas, and gave altitudes that do not match the museum's account. The National Air and Space Museum records that her mechanic William Wills was at the controls and that a loose wrench lodged in the control gears was found to be the cause. This record states the date, the place, who was flying and the finding, and carries no altitude and no account of the fall.
checkedThe Broad Ax page 1 of May 8, 1926, and the Washington Tribune page 1 of May 7, 1926, both read through the Library of Congress text layer on 2026-07-28, against the museum's centennial article.

sources[8]

sources.A1 [A1]

clsA
institutionSmithsonian National Air and Space Museum
titleBessie Coleman's Daring Life as The First Licensed Black Woman Pilot (published June 15, 2021; originally published as "Celebrating the Centennial of Bessie Coleman as the First Licensed African American Woman Pilot")
urlhttps://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/celebrating-centennial-bessie-coleman
accessed2026-07-28
rightsSmithsonian Terms of Use, https://www.si.edu/termsofuse, read 2026-07-28, quoted verbatim: "All other Content is subject to usage conditions due to copyright and/or other restrictions and may only be used for personal, educational, and other non-commercial uses consistent with the principles of fair use under Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act." No Creative Commons Zero icon appears on this article page. Nothing from it is reproduced here beyond short factual statements in the record's own words.

sources.A2 [A2]

clsA
institutionSmithsonian National Air and Space Museum
titleBessie Coleman, First African American Woman to Earn a Pilot's License (museum story page)
urlhttps://airandspace.si.edu/explore/stories/bessie-coleman
accessed2026-07-28
rightsSmithsonian Terms of Use, https://www.si.edu/termsofuse, read 2026-07-28, quoted verbatim: "All other Content is subject to usage conditions due to copyright and/or other restrictions and may only be used for personal, educational, and other non-commercial uses consistent with the principles of fair use under Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act."

sources.A3 [A3]

clsA
institutionSmithsonian National Air and Space Museum
titleBessie Coleman: Five Stories You May Not Know, by Amelia Grabowski, published June 14, 2021
urlhttps://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/bessie-coleman-five-stories-you-may-not-know
accessed2026-07-28
rightsSmithsonian Terms of Use, https://www.si.edu/termsofuse, read 2026-07-28, quoted verbatim: "All other Content is subject to usage conditions due to copyright and/or other restrictions and may only be used for personal, educational, and other non-commercial uses consistent with the principles of fair use under Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act."

sources.A4 [A4]

clsA
institutionSmithsonian National Air and Space Museum
titleHow Bessie Coleman Broke Barriers to Make History, by Gabrielle Barone, published June 15, 2018 (originally published as "Bessie Coleman: Barnstorming through Barriers")
urlhttps://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/how-bessie-coleman-broke-barriers-make-history
accessed2026-07-28
rightsSmithsonian Terms of Use, https://www.si.edu/termsofuse, read 2026-07-28, quoted verbatim: "All other Content is subject to usage conditions due to copyright and/or other restrictions and may only be used for personal, educational, and other non-commercial uses consistent with the principles of fair use under Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act." Cited here only for the age it states, which the decline list uses as evidence that the ages diverge.

sources.A5 [A5]

clsA
institutionLibrary of Congress, Chronicling America (National Digital Newspaper Program)
titleThe Broad Ax (Salt Lake City, Utah; Chicago, Ill.), May 8, 1926, page 1, "Bessie Coleman, Aviatrix, Killed in Plane Accident" (Preston News Service). Read as the page's ALTO text layer; the page image is served at https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84024055/1926-05-08/ed-1/?sp=1. Digitized by the University of Illinois, Urbana.
urlhttps://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ndnp/iune/batch_iune_bismuth_ver01/data/sn84024055/0033289805A/1926050801/0080.xml
accessed2026-07-28
rightsLibrary of Congress, Chronicling America Rights and Access, https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/about-this-collection/rights-and-access/, read 2026-07-28, quoted verbatim: "The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety."

sources.A6 [A6]

clsA
institutionLibrary of Congress, Chronicling America (National Digital Newspaper Program)
titleThe Washington Tribune (Washington, D.C.), May 7, 1926, page 1, "Bessie Coleman, Aviatrix, Killed in Fall from Plane". Read as the page's ALTO text layer; the page image is served at https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn87062236/1926-05-07/ed-1/?sp=1. Digitized by the Library of Congress.
urlhttps://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ndnp/dlc/batch_dlc_arneaux_ver02/data/sn87062236/00542863778/1926050701/0201.xml
accessed2026-07-28
rightsLibrary of Congress, Chronicling America Rights and Access, https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/about-this-collection/rights-and-access/, read 2026-07-28, quoted verbatim: "The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety."

sources.B1 [B1]

clsB
institutionTexas State Historical Association
titleColeman, Bessie (Bessie Coleman: The First Licensed Black Pilot), by Roni Morales
urlhttps://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/coleman-bessie
accessed2026-07-28
rightsTexas State Historical Association copyright notice, quoted verbatim from the entry page: "All copyrighted materials included within the Handbook of Texas Online are in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 related to Copyright and “Fair Use” for Non-Profit educational institutions, which permits the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), to utilize copyrighted materials to further scholarship, education, and inform the public. The TSHA makes every effort to conform to the principles of fair use and to comply with copyright law."
editionHandbook of Texas Online, entry "Coleman, Bessie" (TID FCOBQ), original publication date August 1, 1995, most recent revision January 27, 2022. A single-entry web publication carrying no pagination; the entry runs unpaginated from the birth sentence to the 1995 postage-stamp sentence. Bibliography includes Doris L. Rich, Queen Bess: Daredevil Aviator (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993) and the Houston Post-Dispatch of May 1, 1926.

sources.A7 [A7]

clsA
institutionLibrary of Congress, Chronicling America (National Digital Newspaper Program)
titleThe Chicago whip (Chicago, Ill.), October 14, 1922, Image 2
urlhttps://www.loc.gov/resource/sn86056950/1922-10-14/ed-1/?sp=2
accessed2026-07-29
rightsThe Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.

clearance

died1926
diedSrcA1
pdBasisNothing under copyright is reproduced. The only primary documents quoted are two United States newspaper pages published in 1926, of which the Library of Congress states that newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Every other string on this page is the record's own third-person prose, written from institutional accounts and cited to them. Coleman died in 1926, four years inside the Hall clearance line of 1930.
estateScreened 2026-07-28. No enforcing estate, heir representative or licensing agent for Bessie Coleman is named on any page read for this record. The National Air and Space Museum, the Texas State Historical Association and the Library of Congress each publish her biography or contemporary coverage of her with no estate credit, permission notice or rights-holder contact attached.
trademarkScreened 2026-07-28, against the published sources only; no trademark register was queried, and this screen is limited accordingly. No live commercial mark surfaced. The name appears in the sources as institutional and civic commemoration rather than as a mark in trade: the Handbook of Texas records a 1995 United States Postal Service commemorative stamp, a Chicago street renamed Bessie Coleman Drive in 1990, and a Bessie Coleman Day declared in Chicago in 1992.
dignityThe page opens on the licence, not on the doors that closed. The refusals Coleman met are stated once each, as documented fact and in the register the institutions use, and they are context rather than the page's engine. Her death is stated plainly in the story and once in the schedule, with the finding of record, and appears nowhere as a plaque, a figure of record or a hook; no altitude, no description of the fall and no dramatized detail is carried, and a decline is filed against every such account. No age is carried as a figure, because the institutional sources do not resolve to one. No quotation is attributed to her, because the museum's own pages reproduce her reported words inconsistently.
checkedAt2026-07-28

HISTORICAL RECORD · A DEMONSTRATION

A demonstration record, compiled from public archives. Every line on this page carries its source. Bessie Coleman did not write it; the institutions cited here did.

Corrections are wanted, and they are treated the way a falsehood on any Source of You page is treated: they jump the queue. If a line here is wrong, or a source is misread, write to hello@sourceofyou.com and the page comes down while it is checked.