The Woman No Flight School Would Teach

The Woman No Flight School Would Teach She picked cotton as a child in Texas. And one day, she decided she would fly. In 1919, she was a manicurist in Chicago, listening to pilots back from the war. She applied to flight schools. Every American school refused her. She was Black, and she was a woman. A newspaper publisher told her: go to France. So she saved every cent, studied French at night, and sailed across the Atlantic. In France, she learned in fragile planes. She saw a fellow student die in a crash. She kept going. In June 1921, she earned an international pilot's licence. The first Black woman in the world to hold one. Back home, huge crowds came to watch Queen Bess do loops and figure eights in the sky. Then a Texas show told her Black and white fans must enter through separate gates. She refused to fly. They changed the rule. Everyone came in through one gate. Only then did she take off. She dreamed of opening a flight school for Black students. She died in a crash in 1926, at thirty four. But pilots still fly over her grave every year. Comment QUEEN BESS.