- She was born in Texas and was the tenth of thirteen children. Four of her father's grandparents were Cherokee.
- As a child, she had to walk four miles to school each day. She was a good student who loved reading and excelled at maths. However, at Cotton harvest time she had to skip school to help with the harvest. At 12, she won a scholarship to the Missionary Baptist Church School. At 18, she enrolled in university, but only had enough savings to complete one term before being forced to drop out.
- At 24, she was working as a manicurist in a Chicago barber's shop. Some of the customers there had been pilots during World War I and Bessie was fascinated by their stories. They inspired her to become a pilot herself. She took a second job in order to save money for pilot training.
- Getting the money together was the least of her obstacles, however. At the time, flight schools in America did not admit either African Americans or women. Her situation came to the notice of the publisher of the Chicago Defender, a newspaper for African Americans. He suggested that she should go abroad to learn to fly and published a story about her in his paper, which led to banker Jesse Binga agreeing to sponsor her.
- She learned to fly in Paris, having learned to speak French in a Chicago language school. The plane she learned to fly in was a Nieuport 82 biplane. She earned an international pilot's licence. Bessie didn't stop there - before returning to the USA, she took some extra lessons from a French flying ace to develop her skills even more.
- On returning home, Bessie soon worked out that the only way to make a living from flying back then was to perform stunts at airshows. For this, she would need even more training, but the flight schools in America still wouldn't teach her. She returned to France to complete more training there, and then travelled to the Netherlands and Germany for even more.
- Now she was ready to perform at airshows and became a media sensation and a draw to airshows, known as "Queen Bess". She was known for her courage and determination as well as her skill. In 1923 her plane stalled and crashed during a stunt and she ended up with a broken leg and three broken ribs.
- Her ambitions went beyond merely being a performer, though. She still worked in a beauty shop (although now she owned the shop) in order to save money to not only buy her own plane but to start her own flying school for black aviators. She was committed to promoting opportunities and equality for African American people and became a popular public speaker on the subject. She would refuse to perform at any event where African Americans were refused admission, and once turned down a role in a film, even though the fee would go a long way towards her flying school, because the producers wanted to portray black people in a derogatory way.
- She died aged 34, in a plane crash. It was her own plane, which she'd recently bought, but she wasn't flying it herself. Her agent and mechanic, William Wills, was at the controls. The previous owner hadn't maintained the plane very well and Wills had to land three times on a flight from Dallas to Florida because of technical problems. Bessie's family and friends warned her against flying this plane for this reason. On the fateful flight, she wan't wearing a seat-belt, because she wanted to look out of the window to study the terrain for a parachute jump the following day. The plane went out of control and she was thrown from it at 2,000 feet. Wills tried to regain control but failed and also died when the plane hit the ground. The reason for the crash was later determined to be a wrench left in the engine by a service engineer, which had jammed the controls.
- Numerous schools, scholarships and streets have been named in her honour, including several roads in and around international airports. She has been inducted into the National Women's, The National Aviation and the International Air and Space Halls of Fame. Mae Jemison, the first African American woman to go into space, carried a picture of Bessie Coleman with her on her first mission.
NEW!
Settling the Score
Another collection of short stories, even more murder and mayhem with carol singers, an orchestra out for revenge, a sinister magic stone and a haunted mansion.
Available on Amazon:
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A Tale of Two Sisters
Available on Amazon:
Paperback E-book
A Tale of Two Sisters
During a battle with supervillains, a horrific accident leaves the Warner family with no option but to believe their youngest daughter, Jessica, is dead. It doesn't occur to them that the bad guys could, or would, save her.
Jessica wakes up with no memory of who she is or how she came to be on a space station with two bionic legs, a bionic arm and a bionic eye. She is told her family abandoned her and is sent back to Earth with a mission - to kill them. While Jessica wants to kill her family, along with the twin boys who once rejected her, she knows what the Alliance of Supervillains are asking her to do is a suicide mission. She decides to get her revenge in her own way.
As Jessica puts the first part of her revenge plan in motion, she finds herself with an agonising decision to make. Before she can decide, the Alliance come for her, determined to make her do their bidding. This time, it's the Alliance who leave her, crippled and at the mercy of the Warner family, who have no idea who the Alliance's Black Rose really is.
Jessica finds herself having to re-think her decisions in light of what she now learns about her family, the Alliance, the twins, and herself. It would appear the Alliance have left her with an unwanted and permanent reminder of her time with them. Or have they?
Jessica's older sister, Jill, knows her destiny is to be a doctor and specialise in bionics and genetic variant medicine. She is also hopelessly in love with Christopher, Crown Prince of Galorvia. Can their romance survive the lies Christopher told her when they were both at school, an unplanned pregnancy and Sophie, the wannabe princess who comes between them?
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