THIS IS A DRAFT
Introduced by Council Member Jones:
RESOLUTION 2013-
A RESOLUTION HONORING AND COMMEMORATING THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS
OF PIONEERING AVIATRIX BESSIE COLEMAN; PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE.
WHEREAS, Bessie Coleman was born January 26, 1892 in Atlanta, Texas
and raised in Waxahachie, Texas where she was the tenth of 13 children and attended
a one-room segregated schoolhouse and became the family’s bookkeeper at a very
young age for her mother’s cooking and housekeeping business; and
WHEREAS,
Bessie Coleman at 18 years old attended college at the Colored Agricultural and
Normal University in Langston, Oklahoma for several months before she ran out
of money and headed back home to Waxahachie in grand style with members of the
marching band in tow; and she moved to Chicago several years later during the
mass migration from the south during World War I where she worked and became
known as the fastest manicurist in the city while dreaming of learning to fly
and becoming a pilot in the new world of aeronautics; and
WHEREAS,
in 1920 Bessie Coleman, having learned French and using money that she had
saved, and receiving an investment from an African-American banker, went to
France where gender and racial prejudice was much less pronounced, and
completed an aviation course, becoming the first American to receive a pilot’s
license from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale and thereby became the
first licensed black pilot in the United States upon her return to America; and
WHEREAS,
Bessie Coleman performed in air shows around the country where she became
known as “Queen Bess” and “Brave Bessie” as a result of her breath-taking air
maneuvers and highly entertaining parachute jumps, and the Norman Studios in
Jacksonville communicated with Bessie about using her flying skills to make
what will later become The Flying Ace, and Queen Bess gave lectures inspiring
others to pursue their dreams all while saving up money to make her dream of
opening a flight school come true so that African Americans could learn how to
fly here in the United States; and
WHEREAS, in 1926 on April 30th while on a barnstorming
tour in Florida, Brave Bessie fell from her plane in Jacksonville at the now
defunct Paxon Airfield where Bessie Coleman was killed, and thousands of
mourners filed pass her coffin here at the St. Philips Episcopal Church and
Bethel Baptist Institutional Church; now therefore
BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the City of Jacksonville :
Section 1. The City of
Jacksonville hereby honors and commemorates a legacy of pioneering aviation,
self-confidence and heroism of famed African-American female aviatrix Bessie
Coleman, and urges all people to profit from her example of persistence and self-determination
to follow her dreams and achieve unprecedented success despite long odds and
discouraging circumstances.
Section 2. Effective Date. This Resolution shall become effective upon
signature by the Mayor or upon becoming effective without the Mayor's
signature.
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