Product Description
This mug features the Curtiss Jenny that Bessie Coleman, a 1920's barnstormer, flew. She was the first African American female pilot.
11 oz mug
Bessie Coleman's Curtiss Jenny is featured with her quote:
"The air is the only place free from prejudices."
Since no American flight schools of the time admitted neither women nor blacks, Bessie learned French and travelled to Paris to learn to fly. After polishing her skills with a French ace, she returned to America in 1921 to begin a career as a barnstormer. "Queeen Bess" became a media sensation and was admired by all races. Unfortunately, she died in a airplane crash on April 30, 1926. About 10,000 mourners paid their last respects to the first African American woman aviator, filing past her coffin in Chicago South’s Side.
Some great Bessie Colman quotes:
1. “You’ve never lived till you’ve flown.”
2. “I decided blacks should not have to experience the difficulties I had faced, so I decided to open a flying school and teach other black women to fly.”
3. “I refused to take no for an answer.”
4. “If I can create a minimum of my plans and desires, there shall be no regrets.”
5. “The air is only the place free from prejudice.”
6. “Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.”
7. “I made my mind up to try. I tried and was successful.”
8. “I knew we had no aviators, neither men nor women, and I knew the race needed to be represented along this most important line.”
9. “I thought it my duty to risk my life to learn aviation and to encourage flying among men and women of our race, who are so far behind the white race in this modern study.”
10. “A woman is like a teabag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.”
11. “I don’t know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot.”
12. “Ah, women. They make the nights higher and the lows more frequent.”
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13. “The age of a woman doesn’t mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.”
14. “As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.”
