Publisher's Synopsis
A few years after the Wright brothers' first flight, Bessie was working the Texas cotton fields with her family when an airplane flew over their heads. It buzzed so low she thought she could catch it in her hands. Bessie was fearless. She knew there was freedom in those wings. The daughter of a woman born into slavery, Bessie answers the call of the Great Migration. She moves to Chicago, where she wins the backing of two wealthy, powerful Black men: Robert Abbott and Jesse Binga. Abbott becomes her mentor, while Binga becomes her lover. Her first love, though, remains the airplane. But in 1920, no one in the US will train a Black woman to fly. So, Bessie learns to speak French and sets off to Europe. Two years ahead of Amelia Earhart, Bessie earns her pilot's licenses. While she finds no prejudice in the air, Bessie wrestles other challenges on the ground.
