Pioneering Women Pilots Continue to Inspire

More than 80 years after her mysterious disappearance and presumed death, Amelia Earhart is still the most famous woman ever to pilot a plane. Her record-setting exploits and advocacy for female aviators paved paths for so many women to follow.

But Earhart was just one of many groundbreaking women in aviation history. And as women continue to be an overwhelming minority in cockpits, hangars and corporate offices, there will always be reason to celebrate their successes in flight.

As Women’s History Month comes to a close, Blue Sky News is saluting a few of these brave pioneers by telling their stories. We hope they inspire more girls and women to find their ways to the skies.

And we’re starting with Bessie Coleman, a contemporary of Earhart’s who deserves to be just as famous.

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Bessie Coleman had to break through so many barriers to reach the sky. Born in Georgia in 1892, one of 13 children, Coleman grew up in Texas picking cotton and washing laundry to help her mother earn extra money. In 1915, she moved to Chicago to live with her brothers and became a manicurist.

After World War I, her brothers returned from service and told her about life in France, including the peculiar (for the time) fact that women were allowed to fly airplanes there, unlike in the U.S.

Enamored with the idea of flying, Coleman applied to flight schools across the country but was repeatedly rejected both because she was a woman and because of her African American and Native American heritage.

During her time in Chicago, she befriended Robert Abbott, the founder and publisher of the Chicago Defender, the most prominent Black newspaper in America. Abbott encouraged Coleman to apply to flight scho