On this day in 1921, Bessie Coleman received a pilots license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, making her the first black person to be a "licensed" pilot. As her grandparents were Cherokee, she was also the first licensed Native American pilot.
The event is a real milestone, but it's somewhat deceiving. The US didn't require pilots licenses at the time and the global requirement was far from universal. Pilots licenses would be introduced in the US in 1927. This is significant here as Coleman's international pilots license was a real license, but one that was not recognized everywhere and, moreover, she was not the first black or female black pilots as is sometimes suggested.
She was a pioneering aviator however and earned her living as a barnstormer after taking up flying. In that career she was also an advocate for African Americans. She tragically died in 1930 at an airshow when her aircraft had catastrophic failure.
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