Still, Coleman was determined to become a pilot. None of the pilots she contacted in the U.S. would accept her as a student, so she applied to a flight school in France. There, in 1921, Coleman earned a pilot’s license that allowed her to fly anywhere in the world.
She returned to the U.S. with a new dream: to open a flight school for Black women. While she worked toward that goal, Coleman became a barnstormer, a pilot who travels the country performing dangerous stunts.
“She realized the impact she could have on other people by doing this,” says Lee.
During her barnstorming shows, Coleman flew a type of plane that was common at the time. It had no roof and two seats, with the pilot sitting in the back. She dazzled audiences with dangerous stunts like loop-the-loops. She even walked on the wing of her plane and parachuted to the ground while a co-pilot took the controls.
In 1923, shortly after taking off for a planned show, Coleman crashed. Though she was badly injured, she didn’t let that stop her.
“Tell them all that as soon as I can walk I’m going to fly!” Coleman wrote in a telegram.