William Jennifer Powell is a pioneer aviator and civil rights activist, along with James Banning and the first woman of African-American and what descent, to hold a pilot license?
Bessie Coleman Bessie Coleman (January 26, 1892April 30, 1926) was an American civil aviator. She was the first woman of African-American descent, and the first of Native American descent, to hold a pilot license.
Freedom Riders Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States, in 1961 and subsequent years, in order to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions "Morgan v. Virginia" (1946) and "Boynton v. Virginia" (1960), which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. The Southern states had ignored the rulings and the federal government did nothing to enforce them. The first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17.