Bessie Coleman was an American Civil Aviator. She is noted as the first African American woman to hold a pilot license. After graduating High School, Coleman enrolled at the colored Agricultural and Normal University (now Langston Univ.) in Langston, Oklahoma. She was forced to quit, due to finances. Coleman continued her dream of becoming a pilot once she traveled abroad to attend aviation school in Le Crotoy, France. According to the Texas State Historical Association, she soon discovered that no American school would accept African Americans. Robert S. Abbott, editor of the Chicago Weekly Defender, assisted her in contacting schools abroad. After studying for 10 months in France, Coleman was issued a license on June 15, 1921, by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Nicknamed Queen Bess, the Texas native became a high-profile pilot in the air-shows organized in the United States. Bessie Coleman died at the age of 34 in a plane crash. In 1995, the U.S. Postal Service issued a thirty-two cent commemorative stamp in her honor.