HerStory 2020

For our second HerStory of the new year/decade, we’re soaring through the air with Bessie Coleman, who had the wonderful distinction, in 1921, of being BOTH the first African American woman AND the first Native American woman to pilot a plane. The daughter of a black maid and a Cherokee sharecropper, Bessie fought against the “can’ts” her entire life; she worked at picking cotton with her mother during harvest season, giving up her education for the season, she had to drop out of college due to financial constraints, and there was just plain never enough money. When she was a young adult, she moved to Chicago to live with her brothers and got a job as a manicurist in a local barber shop. She became obsessed with the idea of becoming a pilot, thanks to some brotherly teasing (they had served in WWI and knew that, in France, it was actually possible for a woman to learn to fly. Of course, that wasn’t an option in America.) Bessie worked hard, learned French, and applied to flight school in Le Crotoy, France, where she received her international pilot’s license. Honestly, just that, in the 1920s in America, was a ginormous accomplishment. But Bessie did not stop there.

She came back to the US in 1921 and began performing as a “barnstorming” pilot, loop-de-looping all over the place (this was well before commercial flight, and there weren’t many options for pilots other than paid performing). She flat-out refused to speak or perform any place that was segregated, and she prioritized the lifting up of other black women over anything else. Her activism and advocacy paved the way for future female (and male) pilots of color, and she never once compromised her morals, even it it meant a deferment of her dreams. In fact, she was asked to star in a film production, which would have helped a great deal in her goal of owning her own plane, but when she saw that she’d be cast in a stereoptypical and derogatory role, she refused. Bessie Coleman was not about to feed into those long-held perceptions about black people, even if it meant her career would suffer.She didn’t live long enough to fulfill her life’s mission: opening a flight school for black women. She died as she lived, flying high in the sky, a definite loss for so many communities. But, Coleman’s legacy is long-lasting, and felt even today, every time a young woman of color pushes through the “can’ts” and the “not for you’s” and achieves what had previously been thought of as insurmountable. As you knit your Queen Bess socks, take a moment to reflect on the heights Bessie Coleman soared in her short life, and what she was able to achieve. Fly like the wind, and don’t compromise your beliefs to get ahead. A lesson we can all stand to learn, especially in this emotionally difficult and sometimes frightening world.

As we brainstormed HerStory 2020, one overarching theme kept cropping up: firsts. We wanted to honor women who were the first to do this or the first to accomplish that, both for the very real spearheading they did, but also, (and maybe even more importantly), for the opportunities they uncovered for others by being the first to ____. To that end, our first HerStory recipient is Junko Tabei, the first woman to summit Mount Everest and complete the Seven Summits.

Tabei came to mountain climbing through sheer force of will; her family didn’t have the money to support her burgeoning hobby as a child, so it wasn’t until she was in college that she was able to fully pursue her mountaineering dreams. She founded the Ladies Climbing Club in 1969, whose slogan was “Let’s go on an overseas expedition by ourselves.” It was revolutionary, to create a woman-only club focused on a male past-time such as mountain climbing; many men thought Tabei’s interest was feigned, solely to secure a husband. 

Mountain climbing is not an inexpensive endeavor, so a part of Tabei’s focus was in funding her club’s expeditions. Securing funding for the summiting of Mount Everest seemed an insurmountable obstacle, but Tabei and her team were finally able to do so (while still being tasked with coming up with the equivalent of a year’s salary each) in the early 1970s. They were told, quite frequently, that they “should be raising children instead,” but their passion for climbing carried them through. The climb itself was arduous, as any climb to the summit of Mount Everest is. Tabei and her team were caught in an avalanche (like literally buried in snow), but still persevered, and on May 16, 1975, Tabei and her Sherpa guide Ang Tsering reached the summit of Mount Everest, the first woman ever to do so. But Tabei didn’t stop there; over the next 30 years, she would go on to become the first woman to complete the Seven Summits (the highest points on all seven continents), and would eventually summit mountains in over 76 countries, all while raising a family and, for the final four years of her life, fighting cancer. Her personal life-mantra was: “Do not give up. Keep on your quest.” She kept on her quest, throughout her life, inspiring countless other women to push through the sexism, misogyny, and complete unwillingness to recognize that a woman could and would want to summit mountains and explore the limits of herself, as well. 

Junko Tabei aspired to and achieved Great Heights (the colorway you hold in your hand) in her lifetime, and has earned her place in HerStory. We are honored to share her story for our first HerStory of 2020.