Bessie Coleman
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40 free Bessie Coleman trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Bessie Coleman wanted to fly at a time when no aviation school in America would teach a Black woman. So she found another way, earned her license in 1921 and came home a celebrity. Her story is short, bold and full of surprises, which makes it perfect trivia. This quiz covers her whole life: a childhood in the rural South, the odd jobs that paid for her lessons, the daredevil shows that made her famous and the principles she would not bend. It also follows her legacy into places she could never have imagined. The questions suit students working on a history project, teachers looking for a Black History Month or Women's History Month activity, and anyone who enjoys a true story about beating the odds. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will pick up plenty of fun facts about Bessie Coleman along the way.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Coleman Mons, a mountain named for Bessie Coleman in 2021, borders a heart-shaped region on which world?
Pluto
Pluto gained Coleman Mons in 2021, when astronomers named a mountain that may be a volcano after the pilot. It sits on the edge of Tombaugh Regio, the dwarf planet's famous heart.
Q 02Turned away by every American aviation school, Bessie Coleman sailed to which country in 1920 to earn her license?
France
France gave Coleman the training no American school would: she earned her license there in June 1921, within seven months, as the only student of color in her class.
Q 03Bessie Coleman earned her international pilot's license two years before which famous American flier received hers?
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart was issued her license in May 1923, nearly two years after Coleman's. Earhart was only the 16th woman in the United States to hold one.
Q 04Which NASA astronaut carried a photograph of Bessie Coleman into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992?
Mae Jemison
Mae Jemison took the photo on the mission that made her the first African-American woman in space. She also packed a West African statuette.
Q 05Which toy brand added a Bessie Coleman doll to its Inspiring Women series in 2023?
Barbie
Barbie maker Mattel gave Coleman her own doll in 2023, almost a century after she toured America's air shows.
Q 06The US Mint honored Bessie Coleman in 2023 as part of its American Women series on which coin?
Quarter
Quarter designs in the American Women series honored five women a year from 2022 through 2025. Coleman's was unveiled at an event at the Federal Aviation Administration.
Q 07Bessie Coleman was born in 1892 in a small town called Atlanta, which lies in which US state?
Texas
Texas has its own Atlanta, named for the Georgia city by early settlers, where Coleman was born to a family of sharecroppers.
Q 08Bessie Coleman saved for flying lessons while doing which job at the White Sox Barber Shop in Chicago?
Manicurist
Manicurist was a trade Coleman mastered: she won a contest naming her the best in Black Chicago. Customers home from World War I filled her head with flying stories.
Q 09What did Bessie Coleman dream of opening for young Black Americans, a goal cut short by her death in 1926?
A flight school
A flight school for Black students was Coleman's goal, because none in America would train them. Flying clubs named for her carried the idea on after her death.
Q 10Bessie Coleman was the first Black woman, and the first woman of which other heritage, to earn a pilot's license?
Native American
Native American ancestry came through her father, George, who may have had Cherokee or Choctaw grandparents. He left the family for Indian Territory while Bessie was still a child.
Q 11As a child of sharecroppers, Bessie Coleman left school each harvest season to help pick which crop?
Cotton
Cotton harvests pulled Coleman out of class every season. The rest of the year she walked miles to a segregated one-room schoolhouse.
Q 12Which tech company marked Bessie Coleman's 125th birthday in 2017 with a homepage illustration in her honor?
Google posted a Doodle of Coleman on January 26, 2017, exactly 125 years after her birth to a sharecropping family.
Q 13Which federal agency added Bessie Coleman to its long-running Black Heritage series in 1995?
US Postal Service
US Postal Service designers put Coleman on a 32-cent stamp, the 18th in the Black Heritage series. Chicago's city council had asked for the stamp three years earlier.
Q 21Who goaded Bessie Coleman into flying by teasing that women overseas were already piloting airplanes?
Her brother
Her brother came home from World War I service and taunted her that women abroad could fly. Coleman took it as a dare and set out to learn.
Q 22Which civil rights pioneer led Bessie Coleman's funeral in Chicago, where about 10,000 mourners filed past her coffin?
Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells, the journalist who had exposed lynching in the South, presided over the service. Coleman's death drew little notice in most media but was widely covered in the Black press.
Q 23Bessie Coleman mostly flew which army-surplus biplane, sold off cheaply after World War I?
Curtiss Jenny
Q 14Bessie Coleman refused to fly at any air show unless its organizers agreed to which condition?
Black spectators were admitted
Black spectators were admitted or Coleman stayed on the ground. In the town where she grew up, she flew only after organizers let everyone use the same entrance.
Q 15A 2020s European comic series imagines a pilot named Bessie Coleman smuggling liquor for which Prohibition-era gangster?
Al Capone
Al Capone hires the comic's Bessie Coleman as a bootlegging pilot. The real Coleman made her money honestly: her lectures drew big crowds and paid more than her flying.
Q 16Bessie Coleman's move north in 1915 made her part of which mass movement of six million Black Americans?
Great Migration
Great Migration travelers left the rural South for northern cities like Chicago, where Coleman arrived at 23 hoping to make something of herself.
Q 17Known to air-show crowds as Queen Bess, Bessie Coleman was given which first name at birth?
Elizabeth
Elizabeth Coleman became Bessie at home and Queen Bess on the air-show circuit. Her daredevil stunts earned her a second nickname, Brave Bessie.
Q 18Bessie Coleman earned her living flying loops and figure eights for paying crowds, a 1920s trade known by which name?
Barnstorming
Barnstorming was one of the few paid jobs in 1920s aviation, with pilots touring to sell rides and perform stunts. Charles Lindbergh also began his flying career that way.
Q 19Which newspaper published a belated obituary of Bessie Coleman in 2019 as part of its Overlooked series?
The New York Times
The New York Times ran the obituary 93 years late. Its Overlooked feature honors remarkable people whose deaths the paper's editors had passed over since 1851.
Q 20African-American aviators traditionally honor Bessie Coleman by dropping what over her Chicago grave during flyovers?
Flowers
Flowers fall on Lincoln Cemetery during the flyovers. Chicago's Black pilots began flying over her grave each year in 1931, five years after she died.
Curtiss Jenny trainers flooded the market after the war, some selling for as little as $50 still in their crates. Their slow, stable flight made them ideal for stunts.
Q 24In 1921 the Air Service News hailed Bessie Coleman using which now-dated word for a female pilot?
Aviatrix
Aviatrix was the newsletter's word when Coleman came home in September 1921, newly licensed and greeted by scores of reporters.
Q 25Which Disney Junior cartoon honored Bessie Coleman with a toy pilot named Itty Bitty Bess in 2015?
Doc McStuffins
Doc McStuffins centers on a girl who fixes toys. In the episode she treats Itty Bitty Bess, a rusty tin pilot modeled on Coleman, so the toy can fly again.
Q 26Bessie Coleman rode without a seat belt on her final flight because she was scouting the ground for which stunt?
A parachute jump
A parachute jump was planned for the next day's show, so Coleman leaned out unbelted to study the field below. When the plane suddenly dived and flipped, nothing held her in.
Q 27Which stray object is believed to have jammed the controls of the plane in Bessie Coleman's fatal 1926 crash?
A wrench
A wrench left loose after engine work is thought to have slid into the controls. Her mechanic had already made three forced landings while ferrying the poorly kept plane to the show.
Q 28Which US carrier honored Bessie Coleman in 2022 with a flight crewed entirely by Black women?
American Airlines
American Airlines filled every role on the flight with Black women, from the pilots and flight attendants to the cargo team and the maintenance technician.
Q 29Bessie Coleman took a second job managing which kind of Chicago eatery to save money for flying lessons?
A chili parlor
A chili parlor, small but profitable, topped up the savings Coleman later withdrew to pay for her training abroad.
Q 30Bessie Coleman's first American air show honored the 369th Infantry, a Black regiment known by which nickname?
Harlem Hellfighters
Harlem Hellfighters spent 191 days in front-line trenches, more than any other American unit of World War I. Coleman's show in their honor came in September 1922.