Bessie Coleman (1893-1926), was born in Texas. As a child, she picked cotton and did laundry to help her family.

She wanted to move to Chicago after a few years in Texas. She went to beauty school and found a job as a manicurist, doing people's nails. She was not always interested in flying airplanes, but after reading books about flying, she found a way to get to France because she was not allowed to go to school to learn to fly in the United States. She saved her money while working as a manicurist and she also learned to speak French. She went to live in Europe and while living in Europe, French aviators taught her to fly. She was the first American woman in the world to earn an international pilot's license in 1921 and the first African-American woman pilot.

After returning to the United States, she flew in air shows so she could save enough money to open a flying school for African-Americans.