In the Jim Crow era, a time when black Americans were segregated based on color their skin, young Bessie Stringfield began to explore the open road with her motorcycle. Little did she know that her motorcycle ride across America would break barriers not only for women but for African-Americans to ride motorbikes as well.
Bessie Stringfield, the motoring queen of the 1930s, was an avid cyclist, enjoying the open road and the freedom it offered. Bessie has a unique story.
Based on New York Times, Bessie Beatrice White was born in March 1911 to James Richard White and Maggie Cherry in North Carolina. But Bessie wanted to create a new origin story for herself, so she transformed herself into Betsy Leonora Ellis, an orphaned immigrant from Jamaica.
Published in many newspapers, the story Bessie created was about a girl born on February 9, 1911, to Maria Ellis and James Ferguson in Kingston, Jamaica. Looking for a new home in the United States, her parents immigrated with young Bessie to Boston, Massachusetts. But their American dream was cut short. Soon after arriving in Boston, both Bessie’s father and mother fell ill with smallpox and later died, leaving 5-year-old Bessie an orphan. A wealthy Irish woman adopted young Bessie. During her teenage years, Bessie received a gift from her adoptive mother, a 1928 Indian Scout motorcycle. Although the story of her upbringing is fabricated, it doesn’t detract from it. for the achievements that brought her to the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame.
Bessie began mastering motorcycling when she was a teenager. Before traveling around the country, she built her confidence by first charting routes on a map. In the early 1930s, Bessie re-energized and embarked on her first transcontinental voyage, during the Jim Crow era. During the 1930s and early 1940s, she completed eight cross-country trips.
As she goes on her Indian Scouting, Bessie will earn money performing motorcycle stunts at festivals along her routes. If there was no place for her to get a good night’s sleep, she slept right on her motorbike at a the gas station. Bessie faced life-threatening racial prejudice the entire time she was on the road – she was knocked down by a vans while traveling in the South – but that never stopped her from enjoying the freedom her motorcycle offers.
Stringfield stopped her lengthy cross-country trips in the 1950s, but her adventures continued. Bessie entered an all-male motocross race and took first place, but she was denied the prize when it was revealed she was a woman when she took off her helmet.
Her determination, passion, and courage broke barriers for African-American women and motorcycle enthusiasts. Thanks to her will and adventurous personality, as well as numerous motorcycling achievements, Bessie Stringfield was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2002. Sadly, it was almost a decade later. upon her death in 1993. She was also featured at the Motorcycle Heritage Museum in Pickerington, Ohio.
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