Eva Abram struts before a small gathering at the Renton History Museum. On this night, Feb. 8, she is dressed as aviatrix Bessie Coleman.
As an actor and storyteller, Abram treated the crowd to an impersonation of the first African American to receive a pilot’s license. The performance was part of the museum’s tribute to Black History Month.
Transporting everyone in the audience back to 1926 and Paxon Airfield in Florida, Abram told the story of Elizabeth “Bessie” Coleman, who was born in 1892 in Texas to sharecroppers. At a young age, Coleman helped her mother, who took in laundry, and saved money for her education. She completed the eighth grade and attended a vocational school for one semester until her money ran out.
She got a job as a manicurist in Chicago and eventually met Robert S. Abbott, publisher of the Chicago Defender, a black newspaper. After continually being turned away from aviation schools in the U.S., it was Abbott who found an aviation school in Paris for Coleman to learn to fly.
In June 1921 she received her international pilot’s license from France’s Caudron School of Aviation.
Coleman received much fanfare when she returned to the states in black newspapers and some white media.
She was called a barnstormer and could fly close to the ground, do loops, barrel rolls and figure eights.
“She was always a woman first,” said Abram, who painted her nails and wore her hair down as she said Coleman did.
She noted that Amelia Earhart, another famed female aviator, was just the opposite, cutting her hair to fit in. Both women, she said, took jobs dropping advertising pamphlets from their planes.
Abram said it was important to celebrate the history of all contributors to this nation’s history, but especially African American history because it has been left out of American history for so long.
“We seem to get to a certain point where, oh now that we’re much more equal, then we don’t need to do that any more,” she said. “But, that is completely opposite of what needs to be happening. We still need to know all of our history and I think storytelling plays a large part in that.”
Abram chose Coleman to portray because she knew nothing of her life. She did library research so she could emulate Coleman in her performance.
“I liked learning about the lady, Bessie Coleman ‘cause I never even really heard about her,” said 14-year-old Hannah Clough, who came to the event with her grandmother.
Abram tries to bring out the humanity of those she portrays. She hopes it will help people hold on to the knowledge longer.
“One of the things I try and point out all the time is that this history that I’m doing about African Americans is in fact American history,” Abram said. “And we don’t need to restrict it to January and February.”
Black History Month
The Renton History Museum will present the final installment of its Black History Month series on Feb. 19. At 11 a.m., children’s book author Kunle Oguneye will perform dramatic readings based on his African homeland in a program called “African Folk-tales with Uncle Kunle.” The event is free with price of admission to the museum: $3/adult, $1/child. For more information call, 425-255-2330.
