Vanessa James and Yannick Bonheur – Figure Skaters

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SUMMARY

Vanessa James (born 27 September 1987) is a  Canadian pair skater and Yannick Bonheur (born 18 May 1982) is her former pair skating partner, from France.

Vanessa teamed up with Yannick  in December 2007 after a three-day tryout in Paris, France. The two began

competing together internationally in 2008.  James & Bonheur made their Grand Prix debut at the 2008 Trophée Eric Bompard, where they placed 7th. They placed 10th at the 2009 European Championships and 12th at the 2009 World Championships. At the 2010 French Championships, however, they placed second in the short program and won the free skating to win the title, overall, which sent them on to compete at Olympic and World games.   James & Bonheur were the first black pair to compete at the Olympics.

Vanessa became a French citizen in 2009 and also has a twin sister, Melyssa, who is also a figure skater.

Read more about James and Bonheur here

Bessie Coleman: Pioneer in Aviation

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Bessie Coleman was the first black person, regardless of gender, to earn an international pilot’s license.  She remains a pioneer of women in the field of aviation.

Her Story…

Born on January 26, 1892 in Atlanta, Texas, Bessie Coleman was one of 13 children to Susan and George Coleman, who both worked as sharecroppers.

At 12 years old, Coleman began attending the Missionary Baptist Church in Texas and, after graduating, embarked on a journey to Oklahoma to attend the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University (Langston University), where she completed only one term due to financial constraints.

In 1915, at 23 years old, Coleman moved to Chicago, where she lived with her brothers and worked as a manicurist. Her time in Chicago proved that there were few opportunities for black men and women to realize dreams beyond the average urban fantasies.  Not long after her move to Chicago, she began listening to and reading stories of World War I pilots, which sparked her interest in aviation.

In 1922, a time of both gender and racial discrimination, Coleman broke barriers and became the world’s first black woman to earn a pilot’s license. Because flying schools in the United States denied her entry, she taught herself French and moved to France, earning her license from France’s well-known Caudron Brother’s School of Aviation in just seven months. Coleman specialized in stunt flying and parachuting, earning a living barnstorming and performing aerial tricks. Though she wanted to start a flying school for African Americans when she returned to the U.S., Coleman specialized in stunt flying and parachuting, and earned a living barnstorming and performing aerial tricks. In 1922, hers was the first public flight by an African- American woman in America.

Tragically, on April 30, 1926, Coleman was killed in an accident during a rehearsal for an aerial show. She was only 33 years old.

Coleman remains a pioneer of all men and women in the field of aviation.

Learn more about Bessie Coleman here:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/flygirls/peopleevents/pandeAMEX02.html