Senate Bill sb3068

    Florida Senate - 2007        (NP)                      SR 3068

    By Senators Wilson, Bullard, Hill, Joyner, Lawson and Rich





    33-2555A-07

  1                        Senate Resolution

  2         A resolution recognizing April 30, 2007, as

  3         Bessie "Queen Bess" Coleman Day in the State of

  4         Florida.

  5  

  6         WHEREAS, Bessie Coleman was of African-American and

  7  Native-American descent, and

  8         WHEREAS, Bessie Coleman experienced racial and gender

  9  discrimination in the United States and could not gain access

10  to American Flight Schools while yearning to "amount to

11  something" in American society, and

12         WHEREAS, Bessie Coleman learned French and secured

13  funding to receive a passport with French and English Visas

14  and departed for France in November 1920 to attend the flight

15  school at the Ecole d'Aviation des Freres Caudon at Le Crotoy

16  in the Sommes, and

17         WHEREAS, on June 15, 1921, Bessie Coleman received her

18  license from the prestigious Federation Aeronautique

19  International (FAI) and became the first

20  African-American/Native-American female licensed pilot in the

21  world, and

22         WHEREAS, in 1921, Bessie Coleman returned to a

23  segregated United States, yet she still became a media

24  sensation, performing in air shows across the country, and

25         WHEREAS, Bessie Coleman refused to perform at air shows

26  unless the audiences were desegregated and everyone used the

27  same gates, and

28         WHEREAS, in August 1922, Bessie Coleman outlined to

29  reporters the objectives she intended to pursue for the

30  remainder of her life - that she would be a leader in

31  introducing aviation to her race and founded a school for

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CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.






    Florida Senate - 2007        (NP)                      SR 3068
    33-2555A-07




 1  aviators of any race, because American flight schools were

 2  closed to people of color under "Jim Crow" laws, and

 3         WHEREAS, in January 1926, she returned to the East

 4  Coast, where she had signed up for a number of speaking

 5  engagements and exhibition flights in Georgia and Florida, and

 6         WHEREAS, Bessie Coleman opened up a beauty shop in

 7  Orlando, Florida, to hasten her accumulation of funds to start

 8  her aviation school, and

 9         WHEREAS, in Florida she met the Reverend Hezekiah Keith

10  Hill and his wife, Viola Tillinghast, community activists from

11  Orlando, who invited her to stay with them, and

12         WHEREAS, on April 30, 1926, Bessie Coleman met an

13  untimely death while preparing for a benefit exhibition for

14  the Jacksonville Negro Welfare League over the Jacksonville

15  Paxon Airport, and

16         WHEREAS, upon her death, Bessie Coleman finally

17  received recognition for her contributions to American

18  Aviation when William J. Powell established her flying school

19  in 1929, known as the Bessie Coleman Aero Club, and

20         WHEREAS, Bessie Coleman's legacy produced such notable

21  flyers as the Five Blackbirds, the Flying Hobo's, Willa Brown,

22  Janet Bragg, John Robinson, Cornelius Coffey, Harold Hurd, and

23  the Tuskegee Airmen, and opened the door for people of all

24  races to pursue aviation and aerospace technology careers in

25  the United States and worldwide, NOW, THEREFORE,

26  

27  Be It Resolved by the Senate of the State of Florida:

28  

29         That April 30, 2007, is recognized as Bessie "Queen

30  Bess" Coleman Day in the State of Florida.

31  

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CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.