| While perusing the school library with my Grade 3s this afternoon, I stumbled across a dual language book about "Brave Bessie" Coleman, the world's first licensed black pilot, according to Rootsweb Ancestry. Who knew?! |
"Bessie worked hard at school, and she dreamed about flight.
People said she was crazy: it wouldn't be right.
'You're a girl, not a man, and you're not even white!"
But did she stop dreaming? Note quite!"
Apparently, this woman -- like so many would-be pilots -- struggled with poverty to get her license... but she also faced racism: In the early 1900s, when she wanted to fly, she could not find a flight school in North America who would take black students. So, she went to Europe, and learned to fly in France!!!
So here, in honour of Black History Month, is this blog post on Brave Bessie, and below, one more quote from the picturebook at my school library:
Up above flew the dove, and the raven too
With the redbirds red and the bluebirds blue
And the brown hawks circling, far and few,
And the call of the swallows that follow the dew
When the high wilde geese come travelling through
With the wind on their wings, flying free, flying true.
She called to them all, and she said, "Hey, you!
I'm coming up there too!"