Bessie Coleman grew up in Texas and later worked as a manicurist in Chicago. When her brother came home from World War I talking about women flying airplanes in France, she decided the sky would be her arena. She applied to almost every flying school in America and was rejected because of her race and gender. So she took advice from newspaper publisher Robert Abbott, learned French, took a better paying job, and sailed for France in November 1920. She completed a ten-month course in a fragile, dangerous era of flight and in 1921 earned an international pilot’s license. When one door slams, look for the one God may be opening somewhere else.
