{"product_id":"soaring-above-setbacks-smithsonian-history-of-aviation-and-spaceflight-series-9781560984580","title":"SOARING ABOVE SETBACKS (SMITHSONIAN HISTORY OF AVIATION AND SPACEFLIGHT SERIES)","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen Americans fell in love with aviation in the 1920s and 1930s  African Americans found their enthusiasm met with discrimination. In 1920 the legendary Bessie Coleman was forced to travel to France to learn to fly because no American flight schools would accept her. Ten years later  Janet Harmon Bragg and other black students at Chicagos Aeronautical University fought exclusion by organizing a club that built its own airport in a nearby all-black community. By 1934 Bragg had earned her private pilots license and bought her first plane. By 1942 she had become the first African American woman to earn a full commercial pilots license. In Soaring above Setbacks  Janet Harmon Bragg recalls a life of multifaceted achievement  in which every obstacle was seen as a surmountable challenge. A 1929 graduate of Spelman College with a degree in nursing  she not only became a pioneering aviator but also a successful businesswoman  running two nursing homes on Chicagos South Side. But her stiffest challenges and most remarkable accomplishments occurred in the sky. When the early federal Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) specifically excluded African Americans  she and other black pilots founded the National Airmens Association of America in 1939  successfully challenging the whites-only rule. When she was rejected by the Womens Auxiliary Service Pilots because of her race  she enrolled in a program at Tuskegee Institute. And when  on completing it  an examiner who praised her skills said \"Ive never given a colored girl a commercial license and I dont intend to now \" she returned to Chicago  where she immediately reapplied and passed.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45648207970357,"sku":"ByrdShop_1560984589","price":75.8,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9781560984580.jpg?v=1781712654","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/soaring-above-setbacks-smithsonian-history-of-aviation-and-spaceflight-series-9781560984580","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}