Breaking Down Barriers

Shirley Chisholm became the first African-American congresswoman in 1968. Four years later, she became the first major-party black candidate to make a bid for the U.S. presidency.

Famed U.S. congresswoman and lifelong social activist Shirley Chisholm was born Shirley St. Hill on November 30, 1924, in a predominantly black neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Chisholm spent part of her childhood in Barbados with her grandmother. After graduating from Brooklyn College in 1946, she began her career as a teacher and went on to earn a master's degree in elementary education from Columbia University.  

 

Chisholm served as director of the Hamilton-Madison Child Care Center from 1953 to 1959, and as an educational consultant for New York City's Bureau of Child Welfare from 1959 to 1964.

 

 

http://www.biography.com/people/shirley-chisholm-9247015

Founder of a Great City

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable was the first settler of Chicago. He was also the city's first black resident.

As a free black man, Point du Sable is believed to have been born most likely in Haiti sometime before 1750. His biography is sketchy, pieced together from the rare instances when he had to deal with the British or American governments.

From 1768 or so, Point du Sable operated as an engagé, a fur trader with an official license from the British government. In the early years of the United States, Point du Sable was managing a trading post in Indiana. The area was officially Indian-owned (he was a tenant) and Point du Sable was harassed by both British and American troops who passed through the Midwest.  



 A picture of how Chicago might have appeared when Du Sable was there

 

 By 1788 he had established a farm in Chicago and lived there with his wife, Catherine, a son and a daughter. In the years that the family lived there, they provided some stability to an area that was primarily frequented by peripatetic traders. With the end of the Revolutionary War, Point du Sable's farm prospered. People as far away as the East coast knew Point du Sable as the only source of farmed produce in the area.
Suzanne Point du Sable, Jean Baptiste and Catherine's daughter, was married in 1790 and bore a daughter, Eulalie, in 1796. Her brother, Jean Baptiste Jr., worked as a trader on the Missouri River. He died in 1814.
Point du Sable left Chicago in 1800, selling his property to a neighbor. His wife did not sign the bill of sale, and may have been deceased at the time. Point moved to St. Charles in Spanish Louisiana. His business deals did not go well, and was declared insolvent in the territory in 1813. At the end of his life, Point du Sable was destitute and depended on the goodwill of a neighbor, possibly a lover, for his housekeeping.
Jean Baptiste Point du Sable died on August 28, 1818.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/chicago/peopleevents/p_dusable.html

The Titanic

Laroche's mother sent the family tickets to return to Haiti aboard the La France.  However, the ocean liner's policy banning children dining with their parents in the dining room led Laroche to exchange their first class tickets for the La France for second class tickets on the R.M.S. Titanic. 

On April 10, 1912, Laroche and his family boarded the Titanic from the harbor of Grande Rade near Fort de l'Quest. The Laroches enjoyed the opulent amenities of the ship, dining in the same dining room as its first-class passengers. However, they were subjected to stares and some insults from fellow passengers and crew who frowned upon their interracial marriage.  After the sinking of the Titanic, the White Star Line extended a public apology for the racism exhibited by its crew members toward its non-white passengers including Laroche.

As the ship sank in the early morning of April 15, Laroche stuffed the pockets of his coat with money and jewels and took his wife and children up to the boat deck.  He wrapped the coat around his wife, and his last words to her were: "Here, take this, you are going to need it. I'll get another boat. God be with you.  I'll see you in New York."

Joseph Laroche died in the sinking of the Titanic. His body was never recovered.  His wife Juliette returned to Paris with her daughters and gave birth to their son, Joseph Lemercier Laroche on December 17, 1912. 

 

http://www.blackpast.org/gah/laroche-joseph-phillipe-lemercier-1889-1912

A Trophy Winning Performance

 

Ernie Davis became the 1st African-American to win college football's most prestigious award, the Heisman Trophy. Davis competed collegiately for Syracuse University before being drafted by the Washington Redskins, then almost immediately traded to the Cleveland Browns in December 1961. However, he would never play a professional game, as he was diagnosed with leukemia in 1962 and died in May 1963.

 

 

https://blackthen.com/%E2%80%8Bnovember-28-1961-ernie-davis-makes-college-football-history/

Gifted Hands

Ben Carson was born in Detroit, Michigan, on September 18, 1951. His mother, though under-educated herself, pushed her sons to read and believe in themselves. Carson went from being a poor student to receiving academic honors and eventually attending medical school. As a doctor, he became director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital at age 33 and earned fame for his groundbreaking work separating conjoined twins. He retired from medicine in 2013, and two years later he entered politics, making a bid to become the Republican candidate for U.S. president. After struggling in the primary elections, Carson dropped out of the race in March 2016, and then became a vocal supporter of Republican nominee and former rival Donald Trump. After Trump was elected president, he nominated Carson to be the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

http://www.biography.com/people/ben-carson-475422#synopsis

Reaching the North Pole

Famed African-American explorer Matthew Henson was born in Charles County, Maryland, in 1866. Explorer Robert Edwin Peary hired Henson as his valet for expeditions. For more than two decades, they explored the Arctic, and on April 6, 1909, Peary, Henson and the rest of their team made history, becoming the first people to reach the North Pole—or at least they claimed to have. Henson died in New York City in 1955.

 

Learn more about this great American Explorer: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/henson-matthew-1866-1955

Power to the People

 

In October of 1966, in Oakland California, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. They fought to establish revolutionary socialism through mass organizing and community based programs. Some of the programs still exist today.

 

 

To learn more about a documentary that was made about this organization go here: http://theblackpanthers.com/home/

 

"Big Ben"

Without Benjamin Banneker, our nation's capital would not exist as we know it.  After a year of work, the Frenchman hired by George Washington to design the capital, L'Enfant, stormed off the job, taking all the plans.  Banneker, placed on the planning committee at Thomas Jefferson's request, saved the project by reproducing from memory, in two days, a complete layout of the streets, parks, and major buildings. Thus Washington, D.C. itself can be considered a monument to the genius of this great man.

 

Banneker's English grandmother immigrated to the Baltimore area and married one of her slaves, named Bannaky.  Later, their daughter did likewise, and gave birth to Benjamin in 1731.  Since by law, free/slave status depended on the mother, Banneker, like his mother, was---technically---free.

Banneker attended an elementary school run by Quakers (one of the few "color-blind" communities of that time); in fact, he later adopted many Quaker habits and ideas. As a

young man, he was given a pocket-watch by a business associate: this inspired Banneker to create his own clock, made entirely of wood (1753).  Famous as the first clock built in the New World, it kept perfect time for forty years.

During the Revolutionary War, wheat grown on a farm designed by Banneker helped save the fledgling U.S. troops from Banneker's clock starving.  After the War, Banneker took up astronomy: in 1789, he successfully predicted an eclipse.  From 1792 to 1802, Banneker published an annual Farmer's Almanac, for which he did all the calculations himself.

The Almanac won Banneker fame as far away as England and France.  He used his reputation to promote social change: namely, to eliminate racism and war.  He sent a copy of his first Almanac to Thomas Jefferson, with a letter protesting that the man who declared that "all men are created equal" owned slaves.  Jefferson responded with enthusiastic words, but no political reform.  Similarly, Banneker's attempts "to inspire veneration for human life and a horror for war" fell mainly on deaf ears.

 

But Banneker's reputation was never in doubt.  He spent his last years as an internationally known polymath: farmer, engineer, surveyor, city planner, astronomer, mathematician, inventor, author, and social critic. His fame reached the city London with big ben clock being nicknamed after him.  He died on October 25, 1806. Today, Banneker does not have the reputation he should, although the entire world could still learn from his words: "Ah, why will men forget that they are brethren?"

Banneker's life is inspirational.  Despite the popular prejudices of his times, the man was quite unwilling to let his race or his age hinder in any way his thirst for intellectual development.

 

Watch this short film on the life and legacy of this great American Mathematician: https://youtu.be/hx1zYkv8v6I

 

Civil Rights

 

On August 29, 1957, the United States Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1957. This was the first act of Civil Rights legislation since Reconstruction in America. The act helps to protect every U.S. citizen’s right to vote and establishes a Civil Rights Commission whose duty is to investigate acts of discrimination and injustice. The Act also led to the creation of a Civil Rights Division within the Department of Justice.

 

Learn more about the Civil Rights Act of 1957 here: http://crdl.usg.edu/events/civil_rights_act_1957/ 

 

Don’t Let Anything Get In Your Way

 

Science fiction author Octavia Butler was dyslexic. Despite her disorder, she went on to win Hugo and Nebula awards for her writing, as well as a "genius" grant from the MacArthur Foundation.

 

Octavia E. Butler was born on June 22, 1947, in Pasadena, California. She studied at several universities and began her writing career in the 1970s. Her books blended elements of science fiction and African American spiritualism. Her first novel, Patternmaster (1976), would ultimately become one of the installments in the four-volume Patternist series. Butler went on to write several other novels, including Kindred (1979) as well as Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998), of the Parable series. She continued to write and publish until her death on February 24, 2006, in Seattle, Washington.

 

 learn more about the great author at: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/obit/2006/03/octavia_butler.html

Divine Nine

Who are The Divine Nine and the National Pan-Hellenic Council?

·                     Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Founded 1906, Cornell University

·                     Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Founded 1908, Howard University

·                     Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Founded 1911, Indiana University

·                     Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Founded 1911, Howard University

·                     Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Founded 1913, Howard University

·                     Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Founded 1914, Howard University

·                     Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Founded 1920, Howard University

·                     Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Founded 1922, Butler University

·                     Iota Phi Theta Fraternity, Founded 1963, Morgan State University.

http://www.blackgreek.com/divinenine/

Education is the Key

Mary Jane Patterson became the first African-American woman to receive a college degree when she graduated from Oberlin College in 1862.

Mary Jane Patterson was born in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1840. She is believed to be the oldest of seven children, and that her parents, Henry Irving and Emeline Eliza Patterson, were fugitive slaves. In 1852, her family left Raleigh and moved to Oberlin, Ohio in 1856, in hopes that the children would be able to get a college education. Growing up, her father -- a childhood friend of Andrew Johnson -- supported the family through his work as a skilled mason. To help make ends meet, the family also boarded black students.

 

In 1835, Oberlin College admitted its first black student and two years later became the country’s first coed institution of higher education. It was also the first college in the country to grant undergraduate degrees to women. These changes paved the way for Mary Jane Patterson, who studied for a year in the college’s Preparatory Department. There were still only a few black students enrolled at the college during her four years leading to her graduation in 1862. By earning her B.A., Patterson became the nation’s first African-American woman to receive a bachelor’s degree. (Patterson’s brother, John, and her sisters Emma and Chanie Ann, all would graduate from Oberlin and go on to pursue teaching careers.)

After graduation, Mary Jane Patterson taught at the Institute for Colored Youths in Philadelphia, and then accepted a teaching position in Washington D.C at the Preparatory High School for Colored Youths. In 1871, she became the first black principal of the newly-founded Preparatory High School for Negroes. Over the course of her career, she was known to be a mentor to many African-American women. She continued working at the school until her death on September, 24 1894.

 

Hidden Talents

 

 

John Baxter Taylor, the first African American to win an Olympic gold medal (1908 Men’s Medley Relay, Track & Field), also held a degree in veterinary medicine from the University of Pennsylvania.

To learn more about the life and legacy of this great man visit: http://www.archives.upenn.edu/people/1800s/taylorjb.html

Painting faces

Romare Howard Bearden was born on September 2, 1911, to (Richard) Howard and Bessye Bearden in Charlotte, North Carolina, and died in New York City on March 12, 1988, at the age of 76. His life and art are marked by exceptional talent, encompassing a broad range of intellectual and scholarly interests, including music, performing arts, history, literature and world art. Bearden was also a celebrated humanist, as demonstrated by his lifelong support of young, emerging artists.

Romare Bearden began college at Lincoln University, transferred to Boston University and completed his studies at New York University (NYU), graduating with a degree in education. While at NYU, Bearden took extensive courses in art and was a lead cartoonist and then art editor for the monthly journal The Medley. He had also been art director of Beanpot, the student humor magazine of Boston University. Bearden published many journal covers during his university years and the first of numerous texts he would write on social and artistic issues. He also attended the Art Students League in New York and later, the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1935, Bearden became a weekly editorial cartoonist for the Baltimore Afro-American, which he continued doing until 1937.

After joining the Harlem Artists Guild, Bearden embarked on his lifelong study of art, gathering inspiration from Western masters ranging from Duccio, Giotto and de Hooch to Cezanne, Picasso and Matisse, as well as from African art (particularly sculpture, masks and textiles), Byzantine mosaics, Japanese prints and Chinese landscape paintings.

From the mid-1930s through 1960s, Bearden was a social worker with the New York City Department of Social Services, working on his art at night and on weekends. His success as an artist was recognized with his first solo exhibition in Harlem in 1940 and his first solo show in Washington, DC, in 1944. Bearden was a prolific artist whose works were exhibited during his lifetime throughout the United States and Europe. His collages, watercolors, oils, photomontages and prints are imbued with visual metaphors from his past in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Pittsburgh and Harlem and from a variety of historical, literary and musical sources.

In 1954, Bearden married Nanette Rohan, with whom he spent the rest of his life. In the early 1970s, he and Nanette established a second residence on the Caribbean island of St. Martin, his wife's ancestral home, and some of his later work reflected the island's lush landscapes. Among his many friends, Bearden had close associations with such distinguished artists, intellectuals and musicians as James Baldwin, Stuart Davis, Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Joan Miró, George Grosz, Alvin Ailey and Jacob Lawrence.

Bearden was also a respected writer and an eloquent spokesman on artistic and social issues of the day. Active in many arts organizations, in 1964 Bearden was appointed the first art director of the newly established Harlem Cultural Council, a prominent African-American advocacy group. He was involved in founding several important art venues, such as The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Cinque Gallery. Initially funded by the Ford Foundation, Bearden and the artists Norman Lewis and Ernest Crichlow established Cinque to support younger minority artists. Bearden was also one of the founding members of the Black Academy of Arts and Letters in 1970 and was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1972.

Recognized as one of the most creative and original visual artists of the twentieth century, Romare Bearden had a prolific and distinguished career. He experimented with many different mediums and artistic styles, but is best known for his richly textured collages, two of which appeared on the covers of Fortune and Time magazines, in 1968. An innovative artist with diverse interests, Bearden also designed costumes and sets for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and programs, sets and designs for Nanette Bearden's Contemporary Dance Theatre.

Among Bearden's numerous publications are: A History of African American Artists: From 1792 to the Present, which was coauthored with Harry Henderson and published posthumously in 1993; The Caribbean Poetry of Derek Walcott and the Art of Romare Bearden (1983); Six Black Masters of American Art, coauthored with Harry Henderson (1972); The Painter's Mind: A Study of the Relations of Structure and Space in Painting, coauthored with Carl Holty (1969); and Li'l Dan, the Drummer Boy: A Civil War Story, a children's book published posthumously in September 2003.

Bearden's work is included in many important public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and The Studio Museum in Harlem, among others. He has had retrospectives at the Mint Museum of Art (1980), the Detroit Institute of the Arts (1986), as well as numerous posthumous retrospectives, including The Studio Museum in Harlem (1991) and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (2003).

Bearden was the recipient of many awards and honors throughout his lifetime. Honorary doctorates were given by Pratt Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Davidson College and Atlanta University, to name but a few. He received the Mayor's Award of Honor for Art and Culture in New York City in 1984 and the National Medal of Arts, presented by President Ronald Reagan, in 1987.

 http://www.beardenfoundation.org/artlife/biography/biography.shtml

“Fly Like a Butterfly and Sting Like a Bee”

 

Muhammad Ali born January 17, 1942, was an American professional boxer and activist. He was widely regarded as one of the most significant and celebrated sports figures of the 20th century. From early in his career, Ali was known as an inspiring, controversial, and polarizing figure both inside and outside the ring^. In 1966, two years after winning the heavyweight title, Ali further antagonized the white establishment in the U.S. by refusing to be conscripted into the U.S. military, citing his religious beliefs and opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War.

NAACP

 

 

February 12, 1909: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded in New York City.

 

 

 

 

 

To join in the fight go to:http://www.naacp.org/

The Great Pony Express

 

 

George Monroe and William Robinson are thought to be two of the first African Americans to work as Pony Express riders.

 

Pony Express rider George Monroe was also a highly skilled stagecoach driver for U.S. presidents Ulysses S. Grant, James Garfield and Rutherford B. Hayes. Monroe, who was known as "Knight of the Sierras," frequently navigated passengers through the curving Wanona Trail in the Yosemite Valley. As a result, Monroe Meadows in Yosemite National Park is named after him.

 

 

http://www.biography.com/news/little-known-facts-about-black-history-20730659
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pony_Express

A Grammy Award Winning Performance

With a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, President Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. He was raised with help from his grandfather, who served in Patton's army, and his grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle management at a bank.

After working his way through college with the help of scholarships and student loans, President Obama moved to Chicago, where he worked with a group of churches to help rebuild communities devastated by the closure of local steel plants.

He went on to attend law school, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. Upon graduation, he returned to Chicago to help lead a voter registration drive, teach constitutional law at the University of Chicago, and remain active in his community.

President Obama's years of public service are based around his unwavering belief in the ability to unite people around a politics of purpose. In the Illinois State Senate, he passed the first major ethics reform in 25 years, cut taxes for working families, and expanded health care for children and their parents. As a United States Senator, he reached across the aisle to pass groundbreaking lobbying reform, lock up the world's most dangerous weapons, and bring transparency to government by putting federal spending online.

He was elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008, and sworn in on January 20, 2009. After being re-elected in 2012, President Obama is currently serving his second and final term, which will end in January 2017.

Barack Obama has won two Grammy Awards. He was first honored in 2005 for the audio version of his memoir, Dreams from My Father (best spoken word album), and received his second Grammy (in the same category) in 2007 for his political work, The Audacity of Hope.  Barack H. Obama is the 44th President of the United States.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/presidents/barackobama

Written in History

In 1773, as a Boston slave, she became the first African-American to publish a work.
Phyllis Wheatley was born in Gambia, Senegal and was forced into slavery at the age of seven. Her book of poetry is titled Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral and focuses on her upbringing and on religion.

Read more about this exceptional lady at: http://www.biography.com/people/phillis-wheatley-9528784#synopsis

"Negro History Week"

Black History Month began as “Negro History Week,” which was created in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson, a noted African American historian, scholar, educator, and publisher. It became a month-long celebration in 1976. The month of February was chosen to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.

http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-facts

TuesdayNight Football 12/27/1892

The first intercollegiate football contest between Black colleges took place on this day in 1892. Biddle College, now Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C., and Livingstone College in Salisbury, N.C., played against one another on Livingstone’s snowy front lawn and gave way to a bowl game that celebrates HBCU football’s excellence.

According to historians of the game, women who worked and studied Livingstone’s industrial department fashioned the teams with uniforms and outfitted street shoes with cleats. The game was not an official contest and players from both sides had to raise funds to get a regulation size football.

The men of Biddle had to study the game of football for two years before mounting the challenge to Livingstone, which formed its team the year of their game. Biddle won the game 5-0. In 1956, an athletic marker was erected at Livingstone in honor of the historic game.

Now in its second year, the Air Force Reserve Celebration bowl pits the champions of the MEAC and SWAC divisions against each other, serving as an extension of the historic implication of Biddle and Livingstone’s game. This year’s game featured Grambling State University and N.C. Central University. Grambling bested N.C. Central 10-9 in a game that was played at Atlanta’s Georgia Dome on Dec.

 

https://blackamericaweb.com/2016/12/27/little-known-black-history-fact-the-first-intercollegiate-hbcu-football-game/

A Song for Justice

Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897 – April 8, 1993) was an American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century. Music critic Alan Blyth said: "Her voice was a rich, vibrant contralto of intrinsic beauty." Most of her singing career was spent performing in concert and recital in major music venues and with famous orchestras throughout the United States and Europe between 1925 and 1965. Although offered roles with many important European opera companies, Anderson declined, as she had no training in acting. She preferred to perform in concert and recital only. She did, however, perform opera arias within her concerts and recitals. She made many recordings that reflected her broad performance repertoire of everything from concert literature to lieder to opera to traditional American songs and spirituals. Between 1940 and 1965 the German-American pianist Franz Rupp was her permanent accompanist.

Anderson became an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused permission for Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall. The incident placed Anderson into the spotlight of the international community on a level unusual for a classical musician. With the aid of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt, Anderson performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. She sang before a crowd of more than 75,000 people and a radio audience in the millions. Anderson continued to break barriers for black artists in the United States, becoming the first black person, American or otherwise, to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on January 7, 1955. Her performance as Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera at the Met was the only time she sang an opera role on stage.

Anderson worked for several years as a delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Committee and as a "goodwill ambassadress" for the United States Department of State, giving concerts all over the world. She participated in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, singing at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, Anderson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1978, the National Medal of Arts in 1986, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Anderson

Marin City, California 1942-

In 1940, Marin City did not exist. During World War II, however, the W.A. Bechtel Company of San Francisco was given the contract to construct transport vessels for the U.S. Navy. It created Marinship, which during World War II built nearly 100 liberty ships and tankers. The Bechtel Company was also given permission to develop a community to house some of its workers. That community, Marin City, would eventually be hailed as a model city for the company’s workers and a bold social experiment in race relations.

Marin City was located along the western shore of San Francisco Bay, about two miles northwest of downtown Sausalito...

Read the full article at:http://www.blackpast.org/aaw/marin-city-california-1942

Noteworthy Philanthropy

 

 

Born on August 7, 1904 in Detroit, Ralph Bunche excelled at academics to become a professor and federal officer specializing in international work. He joined the United Nations in 1947 and oversaw a heralded armistice in the Arab-Israeli conflict. He was awarded the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize and later oversaw peacekeeping efforts in the Congo, Cyprus and Bahrain. He died on December 9, 1971.

http://www.biography.com/people/ralph-bunche-9231128

Born in Atlanta, Texas in 1892, Bessie Coleman grew up in a world of harsh poverty, discrimination and segregation. She moved to Chicago at 23 to seek her fortune, but found little opportunity there as well. Wild tales of flying exploits from returning WWI soldiers first inspired her to explore aviation, but she faced a double stigma in that dream being both African American and a woman.
 
She set her sights on France in order to reach her dreams and began studying French. In 1920, Coleman crossed the ocean with all of her savings and the financial support of Robert Abbott, one of the first African American millionaires. Over the next seven months, she learned to fly and in June of 1921, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale awarded her an international pilot's license. Wildly celebrated upon her return to the United States, reporters turned out in droves to greet her.

Coleman performed at numerous airshows over the next five years, performing heart thrilling stunts, encouraging other African Americans to pursue flying, and refusing to perform where Blacks were not admitted. When she tragically died in a plane accident in 1926, famous writer and equal rights advocate Ida B. Wells presided over her funeral. An editorial in the "Dallas Express" stated, "There is reason to believe that the general public did not completely sense the size of her contribution to the achievements of the race as such."

To learn more about the life and legacy of Bessie Coleman watch this video:https://youtu.be/jYYy-dT4498


http://www.pbs.org/black-culture/explore/10-black-history-little-known-facts/#.WJJjeU0zU-I