JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Bessie Coleman was an ambitious young woman, inspired by Black pilots in World War I. Her accomplishments inspired generations of women and girls aspiring to become pilots.
In the 1920s, the Harlem Renaissance was booming. Women now had the right to vote, cars were being made in mass production.
Coleman was forbidden in the United States to learn how to fly a plane, so she traveled to France to learn.
She returned as the first African-American woman pilot in America.
At the time, Jacksonville was a booming city and LaVilla was known as the Harlem of the South.
Adonnica Toler, director of the Eartha White Museum said White reached out to Bessie Coleman about fundraising for the Jacksonville Negro Welfare League.
Coleman’s flying stunts were a sight to see and would draw a large crowd that would raise money. She practiced at the then Paxon Air Field, now the location of Paxon School for Advanced Studies.
On April 30, 1926, Coleman and her pilot William Wills were flying above the airfield and she fell from her plane.
“The reason she fell out, she was not strapped in. She was so short she was looking over she was trying to see what it looked like and when the mechanical error happened, the plane nose-dived and she instantly fell out and hit the ground,” Toler said.
The Jacksonville Journal newspaper had a heartbreaking headline that read: “Jax Airplane Crash Kills Two” with a photo of the plane destroyed with onlookers standing around.
A trailblazer dead at 34 years old.
Her first funeral service was held at The Bethel Baptist International Church.
Toler talked about the significance of Coleman’s time in Jacksonville.
“She had the heart of helping and she understood how popular she was and she could use that to help people,” Toler said.
At Paxon, Coleman’s memory is kept alive. There’s a marker near the park beside Paxon School for Advanced Studies that honors her life.
It was unveiled in 2012 by the Bessie Coleman Aerospace Legacy Inc. Group, founded by African-American women pilots.
A plaque memorializes Coleman for her accomplishments as an aviator, a woman, and also as a Black woman.
Though a short-lived life, she has inspired generations of women like NASA astronaut Mae Jamison, the Bessie Coleman Aerospace Legacy, and girls worldwide who want to become a pilot and anything you dream is possible.