Bessie Stringfield was the first Black woman to ride a motorcycle solo across the United States.
She made eight cross-country trips during the Jim Crow era, often facing racism and prejudice.
Stringfield served as a civilian motorcycle dispatcher during World War II and later founded the Iron Horse motorcycle club.
She was posthumously inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2002.
She shares the same first name as another pioneering Black woman.
Bessie Coleman was the first Black woman to receive a pilot's license in 1921. And her counterpart, Bessie Stringfield, is the first Black woman to ride solo cross-country on a motorcycle.
Coleman ruled the air. Stringfield ruled the road.
The word fearless can only describe Stringfield. With no training, she learned to ride her first motorcycle, a 1928 Indian Scout, as a teen. She continued to ride for over 60 years, making history along the way.
Stringfield made eight cross-country trips between the 1930s and 1940s. Her road trips – always on Milwaukee Iron – took her deep into the Jim Crow south, where racism and prejudice forced her to sleep on her motorcycle at gas stations when hotels refused her.
Stringfield blazed a trail in motorcycle culture, often guided by her deep religious faith. During World War II, she served stateside as a motorcycle dispatcher; performed bike tricks at carnivals and created a community for Black bikers in 1965 with the Iron Horse motorcycle club.
The club was formed when women weren't allowed membership in the American Motorcyclists Association.
In 2002, she was posthumously inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame by the American Motorcyclist Association.
Stringfield's life story is chronicled in a new interactive exhibit, “Bessie Stringfield: Motorcycle Queen of Miami,” on display at the Harley-Davidson Museum’s Clubs & Competition Gallery. Â
The semi-permanent exhibit recounts Stringfield's life and passion for riding with never seen before photographs and personal items from her estate. She died in 1993.
Standing at 5 feet 3 inches, Stringfield rode V-Twins motorcycles
Ann Sinfield, the exhibit’s curatorial lead, called Stringfield inspirational not just for motorcyclists, but for distance riders and for women, especially Black women riders.
She was a petite woman, standing 5 feet 3 inches, but she rode V-Twins, one of Harley's largest motorcycles. It was her bike of choice, which she rode her entire life.
"That’s pretty ballsy because those are really heavy bikes," Sinfield said. “She is just somebody who lived her life on her own terms; decided she wanted to do stuff and went and did it.”
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
âś“ Live Streamingâś“ Interactive Chatâś“ Private Showsâś“ HD Qualityâś“ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Bessie Stringfield (born Betsy Beatrice White; 1911 or 1912 – February 16, 1993), also known as the "Motorcycle Queen of Miami", was an American motorcyclist who was the first African-American woman to ride across the United States solo, and was one of the few civilian motorcycle dispatch riders for the US Army during World War II. Credited with breaking down barriers for both women and African-American motorcyclists, Stringfield was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame. The award bestowed by the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) for "Superior Achievement by a Female Motorcyclist" is named in her honor.
Bessie Stringfield (1911 or 1912 –1993), the "Motorcycle Queen of Miami", was an American motorcyclist, the first African-American woman to ride across the United States solo and one of the few civilian motorcycle dispatch riders for the US Army during World War II. Her many tours of the continental US carried her through the Great Depression, and she rode Brazil, Haiti, and Europe.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
âś“ Live Streamingâś“ Interactive Chatâś“ Private Showsâś“ HD Qualityâś“ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Lovecraft Country, Episode 7, Season 1, “I Am.”
With Hippolyta voyage's and her dimensional experience we meet:
Bessie Springfield (1911 or 1912 - 1993)
Bessie Stringfield (1911 or 1912 – February 16, 1993) was an American motorcyclist who was the first African-American woman to ride across the United States solo, and was one of the few civilian motorcycle dispatch riders for the US Army during World War II. Credited with breaking down barriers for both women and Jamaican-American motorcyclists, Stringfield was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame. The award bestowed by the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) for "Superior Achievement by a Female Motorcyclist" is named in her honor.
Frida Kahlo (1907 - 1954)
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist.
Born to a German father and a mestiza mother, Kahlo spent most of her childhood and adult life at La Casa Azul, her family home in Coyoacán – now publicly accessible as the Frida Kahlo Museum. Although she was disabled by polio as a child, Kahlo had been a promising student headed for medical school until she suffered a bus accident at the age of eighteen, which caused her lifelong pain and medical problems. During her recovery she returned to her childhood hobby of art with the idea of becoming an artist.
Kahlo's work as an artist remained relatively unknown until the late 1970s, when her work was rediscovered by art historians and political activists. By the early 1990s, she had become not only a recognized figure in art history, but also regarded as an icon for Chicanos, the feminism movement and the LGBTQ+ movement. Kahlo's work has been celebrated internationally as emblematic of Mexican national and indigenous traditions and by feminists for what is seen as its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form.
During her early career Baker was renowned as a dancer, and was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her performance in the revue Un vent de folie in 1927 caused a sensation in Paris. Her costume, consisting of only a short skirt of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, became an iconic image and a symbol of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties.
Baker was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who variously dubbed her the "Black Venus", the "Black Pearl", the "Bronze Venus", and the "Creole Goddess". Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she renounced her U.S. citizenship and became a French national after her marriage to French industrialist Jean Lion in 1937. She raised her children in France. "I have two loves, my country and Paris", Baker once said, and she sang: " J'ai deux amours, mon pays et Paris ".
Baker refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States and is noted for her contributions to the civil rights movement. In 1968, she was offered unofficial leadership in the movement in the United States by Coretta Scott King, following Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. After thinking it over, Baker declined the offer out of concern for the welfare of her children.
Nawi, the last Dahomei Amazon (1879 - 1979)
The Dahomai Amazons were female warriors who left European colonisers shaking in their boots, foreign observers named them the Dahomey Amazons while they called themselves N’Nonmiton, which means “our mothers”. Protecting their king on the bloodiest of battlefields, they emerged as an elite fighting force in the Kingdom of Dahomey in, the present-day Republic of Benin. Described as untouchable, sworn in as virgins, swift decapitation was their trademark.
The last surviving Amazon of Dahomey died at the age of 100 in 1979, a woman named Nawi who was discovered living in a remote village. At their height, they made up around a third of the entire Dahomey army; 6,000 strong, but according to European records, they were consistently judged to be superior to the male soldiers in effectiveness and bravery.
Even after French expansion in African in 1890s subdued the Dahomey people, their reign of fear continued. Uniformed French soldiers who took Dahomey women to bed were often found dead in the morning, their throats slit open. During the Franco-Dahomean Wars, many of the French soldiers fighting in Dahomey had hesitated before shooting or bayoneting the N’Nonmiton. Underestimating their female opponents led to many of the French casualties as special units of the female Amazons were assigned specifically to target French officers.
By the end of the Second Franco-Dahomean War, the French prevailed, but only after bringing in the Foreign Legion, armed with machine guns. The last of the King’s force to surrender, most of the Amazons died in the 23 battles fought during the second war. The legionnaires later wrote about the “incredible courage and audacity” of the Amazons.
From daughters to soldiers, from wives to weapons, they remain the only documented frontline female troops in modern warfare history. A sub-
Fast Enough combines an imagined story of Bessie Stringfield as a young girl with historical facts about Bessie as an adult. Bessie Stringfield went on to become the first African-American woman to travel solo across the United States on a motorcycle. Not only was she fast, but she was a true adventurer, daring to ride to places unsafe for African Americans in the 1930s and ’40s. Fast Enough is an inspirational story for anyone who’s been told they are not enough.
Joel Christian Gill | Lion Forge | February 5
Purchase Here 👉🏿  Amazon | IndieBound
Find more children’s books by Black authors here
<> Follow BCBA on Twitter | Instagram <> Subscribe to Our Newsletter <>
“At 16, Bessie taught herself to ride a motorcycle, and at 19, she flipped a coin onto a map of the U.S. and headed out on a solo trip to ride through the 48 contiguous states (including the Jim Crow south-- years before the interstate system was created). Bessie continued to ride her motorcycle well into her latter years. She died in 1993 at the age of 82.”
