via Wikipedia
Born on January 26, 1892, to a large Texas sharecropping family, Bessie Coleman refused to accept the fate of lifetime poverty.
She hustled her way from domestic worker to the halls of Oklahoma Colored Agricultural & Normal University (now Langston University).
Coleman took her destiny into her own hands using a college education - but financial hardship had other plans.
Coleman ran out of money and had to return home after just one year.
Undeterred by the setback, she later moved to Chicago, where new professional connections would change her life forever.
WWI pilots inspired Coleman to chase after a new career in aviation.
When U.S. flight schools rejected her out of gender and race discrimination, two trailblazing, Chicago businessmen - bank owner Jesse Binga and The Chicago Defender founder Robert S. Abbott - helped sponsor Coleman’s next move.
In June 1921, after years of hard work, saving, and mastering the French language, Coleman graduated from the Caudron Brothers' School of Aviation in France - becoming the first Black woman to earn an international pilot’s license.
She went on to tour the world, performing highly skilled stunt flying and parachute jumps that mesmerized crowds from Texas to Belgium.
Though an in-flight accident caused her early death in 1926 at 34, we still marvel at her bravery.
Today, women across the world draw inspiration from her example to never settle for what others believe Black women can achieve.