African American History – Afro Lit Stories

Disclaimer: This article is written for educational purposes to the best of my knowledge and may contain errors and omissions. I am not a qualified historian or a teacher and this blog may change focus at any time please read this at your own risk.

Introduction

When you think of grunge music, who do you think of? White men in a band such as Nirvana. Even though there are black people in famous indie rock bands such as Skunk Anansi or Bloc Party, grunge tends to be associated with predominantly white men. It ignores other bands that don’t fit into the white male image of rock music.

Who are the Bam Bam?

Did you know that a black woman called Tina Bell was in a rock band called Bam Bam who helped create the subgenre known as grunge by combining punk and heavy metal?

Bam Bam was a grunge rock band that was created in 1983 in Seattle, USA. The band included Tina Bell, the lead singer and songwriter, her husband and guitarist Tommy Martin, the drummer Matt Cameron and the bass guitarist Scotty Ledgerwood.

Cameron left the group in 1984 and formed other bands such as Soundgarden and Pearl Jam and Tom Hendrickson replaced him. Ms Bell was known for her powerful vocals and stage presence that captivated the audience.

Who is Tina Bell?

Tina Bell was born on the 5th February 1957 in Seattle and she was the oldest daughter of 10 children and sang in the Mount Zion Baptist church as a child. She attended Washington State University, studied drama, and then joined the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute.

As a student, she was preparing to sing the French rendition of the song C’est Si Bon and needed a French tutor to help with the lyrics. She called Tommy Martin from an advert in the newspaper and Mr Martin and Ms Bell fell in love, they got married and had a son called TJ.

Bam Bam had loyal fans in Seattle and released 1 EP called Villains (Also Wear White), 2 singles called Ground Zero and Show What You Know and 2 albums called Free Fall from Space, and Bam Bam House Demo. They performed at packed gigs and live shows, and they were voted twice for the best Seattle bands and performed at the Metropolis.

What happened to Tina Bell?

According to the Culture Rock Griot interview, Ledgerwood explained that Bam Bam didn’t get the recognition they deserved because of the racism and sexism that contributed to the band being erased from grunge history.

Ledgerwood continued revealing how black women are meant to be portrayed as the “hip-hop, R&B or a soul diva” Since she was the lead singer of a rock band, it didn’t fit into the idea of what a rock band should represent at the time.

In the 1980s, Bam Bam moved to Europe with the aim that living in Europe would give them more opportunities for the band. However, things didn’t go as planned because by the time they left the USA, grunge had already reached the mainstream audience, and living in Europe didn’t advance their careers.

As the writer Jen B. Larson wrote in the article by The Stranger she explains that “audiences were not ready to see an African-American in a rock band.”

The lack of acknowledgement affected the band especially Ms Bell since she helped grunge thrive and erasure is nothing new to black artists who have created and innovated music, only to be forgotten. They returned to the US and Ms Bell left the band in 1990. She divorced Mr Martin in 1996, became depressed and turned to spirituality, religion and astrology.

How did she die?

Ms Bell died on the 10th October 2012 due to cirrhosis and struggled with depression and alcoholism. According to her son TJ Martin, Ms Bell was dead for a couple of weeks and her belongings were thrown out without notifying her family.

Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed reading this short blog post. I can imagine how she must have felt leaving the band, knowing how exhausted and frustrated she must have felt not receiving her recognition. The fact that I heard about her a couple of years ago shows that Ms Bell was forgotten and overlooked.

Don’t forget to share this blog post with other black women interested in knowing more about black women’s experiences and stories in society. And let me know what you think about this blog post in the comments.

Disclaimer: This article is based on Bessie Coleman for educational purposes. The information about this topic is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, but there may be omissions. I am not a qualified historian or teacher and should remind readers to read at their own risk. I reserve the right to change how I run and manage this blog and may change focus at any time.

This is an inspirational story featuring Bessie Coleman, a black Native American pilot who broke the racial and gender barriers by achieving her goal of becoming the first black female pilot in 1921 in France. It has been 102 years since she received her licence and influenced black people to kickstart their careers in aviation.

Who is Bessie Coleman?

Bessie Coleman was born and raised in Texas on the 26th January, 1892 and grew up in a large family. Coleman was a bright student who excelled in Maths and helped her mother pick cotton since her parents were sharecroppers and washed laundry to earn income.

She studied at the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University (now Langston) but she had to leave because of financial difficulties.

What did Bessie Coleman do for a living?

When she was 23, she moved to Chicago to live with her older brother and secured a job as a manicurist at a barbershop after completing her education at the Burnham School of Beauty Culture.

While she was working, her brother John Coleman came into the barbershop, who wasn’t fully sober teased her saying that French women were more liberated and were allowed to fly aeroplanes and he was right. It was in the barbershop that she decided to become a pilot.

How did she become a renowned pilot?

While living in Chicago, she made connections and befriended prominent black entrepreneurs such as Richard Abbott, a businessman and publisher of the Chicago Defender newspaper. Also, Jesse Binga, an entrepreneur who owned a bank and both businessmen played an essential role in ensuring she achieved her goal.

She applied for aviation schools in the USA and got rejected because of her race and gender, however, that didn’t stop her from learning how to fly.

It was Mr.Abbott who suggested that she should apply for a flight school in France since they were “less sexist and racist” and were more accepting of teaching and training French women to become pilots.

In the meantime, she applied for schools in France, switched jobs to become the manager of a restaurant to save money and took French lessons that were paid for by Jesse Binga.

A flight school called the Caudron Brothers School of Aviation in Le Crotoy in France accepted her application and she left in November 1920. She spent 7 months training as a pilot and was awarded the international licence by the Federation Aero Nautique Internationale in June 1921.

The air is the only place free from prejudices
-Bessie Coleman

What happened after she became a pilot?

When she returned to America, she became a celebrity in the black community and became a stunt pilot. She returned to Europe to gain more experience and visited countries such as France, Netherlands and Germany before returning to America.

It was during this time that she became known as Queen Bess and became famous for barnstorming such as looping the loops and parachuting off the plane. Also, she toured the country and gave lectures to the black community.

How did she die?

She was rehearsing for an airshow in Florida and took her last flight with a mechanic called William Wills who was flying the Aeroplane.

According to the Independent, she was preparing to parachute off the plane when a wrench got caught in the engine and she was thrown out of the plane and didn’t survive the fall.

The mechanic didn’t survive the crash either as he lost control of the plane. She was only 34 years old and her ambition was to open a flight school so that black people could take flight lessons.

Over 5,000 people attended her funeral as they paid their last respects to the pioneering pilot. It was the journalist and activist Ida B. Wells who delivered her eulogy at the funeral.

Remembering Bessie Coleman

In 1929, William J. Powell, a black pilot started a flight school and called it Bessie Coleman Aviators Club in her honour. In 1977, black women started an aviation organisation called Bessie Coleman Aviators. It is important to not let race get in the way of your ambition.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article because I read a book about her and even though I have heard of her, I was inspired by her story and that she was passionate and determined to achieve her goals.

Let me know what you think of the blog post in the comments below, I appreciate the feedback and want to make sure that the content is intriguing. Don’t forget to share this blog post with other black women who are fascinated by black history and thank you for reading.

Reference

eBook: Bessie Coleman- First Female African-American and Native American Pilot by Cathleen Small.

Tina Bell: The Overlooked And Forgotten Pioneer of Grunge

Introduction