JANUARY 26: TODAY'S INSPIRING WOMEN
Bessie Coleman
Bessie Coleman, an American aviator and the first black woman to earn a pilot's license, was born in 1892. In 1922, she became the first African American woman to stage a public flight in America.
Angela Davis
Angela Davis, an American civil rights and radical activist, was born in 1944. She emerged as a prominent counterculture activist and radical in the 1960s as a leader of the Communist Party USA.
Alda Facio Montejo
Alda Facio Montejo, a Costa Rican feminist jurist, writer, teacher and international expert in gender and human rights in Latin America, was born in 1948.
Deeper dive
In the face of extreme discrimination and violence toward Black people in the American South during her childhood (including voter discrimination, segregation, and lynchings), Bessie Coleman became first African American woman aviator. Read more about her life.
“The air is the only place free from prejudices.”